Devon and Dundas

EARLY last century the Canadian government was keen to show the world that this collection of islands inside the Arctic Circle was part of its territory so it sent Royal Canadian Mounted Police to staff isolated stations along the Northwest Passage.

Just one of these remote posts was in a little place called Dundas Harbour, a night's sail from Pond Inlet on the shore of Devon Island, and two men were based here every year from the early 1920s until the late 1950s.

There wasn't much for them to do – no hunting licences to issue, no traffic stops to make, and certainly no domestic disputes to mediate – but huddle against the sub-zero temperatures during the long months when the sun never rose above Devon Island.

Sometimes families would accompany these men to the post, but more often than not the only company the policemen would have for months at a time were the Inuit guides responsible for keeping them alive during winter.

The RCMP camp closed in the 1950s, when Canada was happy the world knew this land was part of its sovereign territory, and the destination because part of Arctic folklore with many of the locals up this way related to someone who once lived at Dundas Harbour.

Since then Devon Island has been the world's largest uninhabited island.

The passengers aboard the Clipper Adventurer were lucky enough to visit Dundas Harbour today, and see the shacks that remain from the days when this place was home to a RCMP camp, but not before our plans were interupted by a single polar bear.

We were going to land on another beach and walk to the RCMP post but, soon after dropping anchor, our guides discovered the polar bear camped on the weather-beaten peninsula so that plan was scrapped and it was into the zodiacs for some waterborne exploration.

The beast was looking for a feed, staying close to a family of walrus occupying a rock at one end of the beach, and our driver Chris was able to get the zodiac close enough to snap some pictures of this great white creature before motoring on to the marine mammals.

He told us the bear was a teenage lad, not afraid of anything, and the creature spent as much time looking at us as we did looking at him and even sat down on his considerable rump a few times to relax while taking in the view.

We caught a glimpse of the walrus as we rounded the point, but he was wrapped in a ball sleeping, with brown skin camouflaged by the brown rock, so we didn't get a very good view.

Chris decided not to get close to close to this big bloke, who seemed happy to spend the morning snoozing now some nice people had scared the hunting bear away with a fleet of buzzing zodiacs, because his relatives were in the water and we didn't want to cause a stir.

It was a bit of a motor to get to Dundas Harbour and what's left of the station but, as we approached from the sea, we we passed a couple of jagged icebergs before the deserted shacks came into view.
 

There were a couple of wooden buildings in the sand by the beach, battered by the Arctic gales and bleached by the strong sun that beats down when the clouds do part, and an outhouse a little further along the beach.

From our vantage point just offshore we could also see the white picket fence guarding the cemetery set further up the hill towards the rocky peak that loomed over the antique settlement.

 

Cruise historian Ken McGoogan told us only two people were resting in the graveyard, both RCMP members posted to the Dundas Harbor camp early last century.

The Northwest Passage expert explained that one of them men shot himself when the isolation of the Dundas Harbour post became too much while the other perished in a "hunting accident".

Our zodiac was last back to the ship, which meant we had to hover until the other boatload’s of passengers could be offloaded and the boat hauled onto the deck, so Chris took the long was home and we did a lap of the iceberg resting nearby.

Chris explained it was a perfect specimen of an iceberg that had broken away from a glacier and travelled a fair distance and he noted that the lack of air bubbles beneath the surface indicated it was a solid piece for frozen water.

We could see the scars ground into the surface as this fragment of the ancient glacier travelled over the bedrock of a distant fjord and noticed the water bursting out of a blowhole just near the waterline as the waves rolled against the block of ice.

From our vantage point at sea level the iceberg looked like a pervious stone, or at least a chunk of crystal, with various shades of blue coming together to reveal creases and cracks in the frozen surface.