Iceberg nursery

IT took me 38 years to learn that icebergs come from glaciers.

I must admit I never gave it much thought, as you don't see a lot of icebergs in Australian waters, but it was after visiting Ilulissat early in this cruise I discovered that 80 per cent of the icy boulders floating in the Atlantic Ocean come from Greenland's wild and formidable west coast.

The rest start life as part of the Canadian glaciers on this side of the David Strait and today I was able to inspect one of these iceberg factories up close by cruising along the face of a frozen river at the northern end of Croker Bay.

For a couple of hours this afternoon we drifted past the 3km face of a Croker Bay glacier – I say "a Croker Bay glacier" because there are a couple up here – looking up at the jagged towers rising high above.

The raw edge of the glacier looked like the teeth of a saw, or the peaks in a miniature mountain range, and it creaked and groaned as the ice further along the valley pushed towards the sea.

From a distance it looked like the glacier was white, with a few dirty streaks where mud from the surrounding mountains had fallen on the frozen surface, but when we got close I could see the face was a colour chart of blues from a deep sapphire and a vibrant teal to a vague duck egg.

A lesson from Clipper Adventurer geologist Jon Dudley told me the colours were determined by the state of the water when the glacier was forming.

Snow that falls high on the mountain and then takes the next 25 year to be compressed into blocks of ice will be white, while pools of fresh water that freezes when temperatures drop below zero will take on those vivid shades of blue.

When it was time to leave the captain did a big turn at the top of Croker Bay and cruised slowly away so everyone on board could catch one long, last look at the rivers of ice in this remote spot.

And, as I was getting changed out of my wet-weather gear for dinner, it occured to me it would be the most northerly point in our Arctic journey so I made my way to the restaurant via the television in the bar which shows our position by longditude and latitude.

We were well north of the 74th line of latitude, a number I will always remember because it's the same year I was born.

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.

Living inside The Circle

WHEN it comes to isolated settlements, Pond Inlet must be near the top of the list.

This village, on the northern end of Baffin Island near the famed Northwest Passage, is hundreds of kilometres from anywhere with the isolation only emphasised during the long Arctic winters when the sun doesn't shine on the hamlet for months at a time.

We called into Pond Inlet for a few hours today and were treated to a very warm welcome by the residents of this proud Inuit community.

The elders – keen to make the most of the rare visits by cruise ships and expedition boats – organised a performance to showcase traditional music, dance, singing and costumes.

There was even a display of throat singing, a traditional Inuit art where a pair of women make high and low sounds deep in their throat and alternate so those listening can only hear one long note.

Clipper Adventurer culturalist Jenna Andersen gave the passengers a lesson on throat singing when we returned to the ship.

"Two women stand facing each other, holding each other's elbows, and stare at each other," she said.

"They make the sounds from the hard part of the throat, adding in higher notes, and whoever laughs first or messes up would lose the competition.

"The women know how to throat sing and it used to be a competition, but that has changed over the years and now it's a cultural thing and a celebration rather than a contest.''

Pond Inlet was another of those Arctic communities developed so the residents of remote communities could come together to be cared for and while the Inuit has paid a big price, sacrificing the traditional way of life, the people have managed to hold on to some customs.

One of my favourites, and something we got to see during our afternoon in Pond Inlet, was the amautik which is an oversized poncho new mothers wear to carry their baby keeping the infant close to their body at all times.

Jenna Andersen, who is a resident of a remote northern community – the only way in to her village when she was growing up was by boat or seaplane – told the group an infant could stay in the traditional coverall for as long as two years.

"Inuit women work their hearts out," she explained.

"They prepare all the meals, they sew everything for the community, and they look after the tent area and having their baby behind them means the child is always with the mother but she has her hands free to work.

"And, while it's an item of clothing worn by the women in the community, a man will wear his wife's amautik for a couple of weeks if he's having no luck hunting because it will help him reconnect to the land."

 

When we got back to the ship I spent some time braving the cold on deck to take in the view across the water to the Sirmilik National Park.

This protected parcel of land occupies the whole island across the channel from Pond Inlet, as well as a tip of Baffin island just to the west of the settlement, and it's one of three national parks in this part of the Canadian Arctic.

While any parcel of wilderness is special I marvelled at this one because of the number of glaciers I could see from the deck of the Clipper Adventurer.

I have travelled great distances in the past to see one glacier - there was a day in The Yukon a few years back when I travelled north from Whitehorse to fly over a glacier just across the border in Alaska - but today all I had to do was stand on the deck to see a dozen rivers of ice.

Almost everywhere else in the world a glacier is a big deal, but when there are dozens just across the water it seems they become very common and unexciting with the locals finding it hard to understand why I was so impressed with the view from their town.