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Enough about me. Let's talk about YOU. What do YOU think about me?


Looking back as the year winds down, I discover that this has been a great month for the ol' blog. Second highest number of visitors ever. Yes, we are talking thousands. No big mystery, of course: people were keen to read about our Adventure Canada voyage Out of the Northwest Passage. And let's not kid ourselves: folks loved the related photos and, above all, the paintings by Sheena Fraser McGoogan, like the one to your left. Lots more turn up on Sheena's website.
To move into the number two spot, December 2015 narrowly edged out September 2014. That was when I found myself talking about the discovery of the Erebus, and also about John Rae entering Westminster Abbey -- my most visited post ever. As for the number-one month, that remains October 2013. Does anyone remember the 50 Canadians, Ocean-to-Ocean, Book Tour Extravaganza sponsored by VIA-Rail and Harper Collins Canada. Complete with a contest featuring a travel voucher worth $5K? From Toronto, we traveled by train first to the Pacific and then to the Atlantic. It was all in aid of 50 Canadians Who Changed the World.The most popular post during that run, and second most popular of all time? Three reasons why I hate Calgary. Go figure. But hey, that's enough about me. Let's talk about YOU. What do YOU think about me?
Ken McGoogan
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Northwest Passage voyagers make history . . . maybe next time?




[Here endeth our Adventure Canada voyage Out of the Northwest Passage. . . .]
 
DAY SIXTEEN
Sept. 20
 Today we visited what is arguably the most picturesque community in Greenland. The settlement of Itilleq is 49 km south of Sisimiut on a small island at the mouth of Itilleq Fjord. Inhabited by about 100 Greenlanders, the town comprises a couple of dozen brightly painted houses built on rocky black slopes. A neat graveyard alive with bright white crosses overlooks the town. And beyond lies a spectacular ring of mountains.
The church was built in Thule in 1933 and moved here three decades later. Today, it serves as a youth club and community centre. About twenty people came on board the Ocean Endeavour for lunch, among them some of the most amenable children in the Arctic. One two-year-old uttered not a word of complaint while staffer Dave Freeze carried him hither and yon.
At the heart of Itilleq lies a soccer pitch, complete with two nets. Here, a team of ambitious voyagers entered into a match. . . and came within a hair’s breadth of making history by winning. We brought ashore a number of ringers, among them Laura Baer, yoga teacher and zodiac driver. Another of them, fellow driver Dawson Freeze, registered a beautiful goal. And hard-driving passenger Eddie Carnegie notched a second.
Meanwhile, unfortunately, the Itilleq team scored three times, and so walked away with a victory. Team members accepted the Adventure Canada trophy with good cheer. Fact remains: the red-shirted cheerleaders, under the leadership of Dave Freeze, stole the show with their effervescence, their spirited chants, and their explosive dance routines. Yay, Polar Bears!

 
DAY SEVENTEEN
Monday, Sept. 21

Kangerlussuaq lies at the end of one of the world’s longest fjords, Sondre Stromfjord, which runs inland for 168 kilometres. This is the site of one of Greenland’s four airports. The U.S. military built it during the Second World War, and vacated in 1992. Voyagers spit into two groups, with one travelling to the ice cap and the other doing a nature tour that included a stop at a glacial lake and a long-distance sighting of hard-to-find muskox.
The previous evening had culminated in an ebullient kitchen party featuring the house band. Unbeknownst to many, it also brought the resolution of a kidnapping mystery that had been inspired by Margaret Atwood’s Stone Mattress. Photographer Andre Gallant had taken to presenting situational images of a rubber chicken he called McChickie. 
One night at the bar, a few staffers had kicked around the idea of kidnapping Gallant’s yellow bird . . . and, when the popular critter disappeared, and ransom demands ensued, suspicion fell mainly on the late-night conspirators. Incredibly, the real culprits -- staffers Natalie Swain and Judy Acres -- had hatched a parallel plan independently. But, unlike the late-night talkers, they had acted on it. To Gallant’s relief, McChickie resurfaced unharmed.
After dinner, with most voyagers heading for their cabins and the ship sailing into  Sondre Stromfjod, the Aurora Borealis exploded into the night-time sky. This display of Northern Lights provided a fitting cap to a voyage that had taken us more than 5,000 kilometres through the Northwest Passage. Ah, for just one time . . . 
[ In 2016, Sheena (our artist-photographer)  and I sail Into the Passage. Check it out. Maybe catch you then?]




Ken McGoogan
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Northwest Passage voyage enters the Greenland ice




DAY FOURTEEN
Friday, Sept. 18
 Sunrise in Karrat Fjord provided the most memorable morning of the voyage, featuring dead calm waters, icebergs large and small, wisps of fog swirling past distant mountain peaks, white-capped and soaring to 6,000 feet. Voyagers could hardly believe the vistas. Those who had visited this sixty-kilometre-long fjord three or four times were left dazzled, declaring to a person that they had never seen this stunning landscape look more spectacular.
Many of us hiked the nearby peaks, around which gun-bearers had established a perimeter that provided vistas of icebergs and floes. In the distance across the water and ice, we could discern the settlement of Nugatsiaq. More than one visitor remarked on the peacefulness and spirituality of the island on which we had landed: Karrat Island. Call it gorgeous, though even that word fails to capture the experience.
Latonia Hartery greeted voyagers at a small graveyard, and Mark St. Onge explained that the sedimentary rocks, 1.95 billion years old, showed that we were at the edge of the Rae Craton or tectonic plate. He pointed out the highly visible Franklin Dyke, which had erupted into the plate a mere 723 million years ago.
Back on the ship, the bravest among us went for a polar dip. Forty-eight people (28 of them male) took the plunge, some of them retiring later to the hot pool on Deck Six. Nobody showed any signs of wanting to challenge the record, held by AC staffer John Houston, of 28 minutes in the water.
Lunch became a back-deck barbecue in the sunshine, with people sitting around at outdoor tables while enjoying a fabulous repast, not incidentally surrounded by shutterbugs obsessively snapping as we sailed through the most impressive iceberg
s we had yet seen. During the afternoon, as we beat south, Hartery told the compelling story of Knud Rasmussen, Greenland’s greatest explorer and anthropologist. She traced his career from his birth in Ilulllisat through his seven Thule expeditions and beyond, including his six years on the world lecture circuit. Among other achievements, Rasmussen demonstrated that the so-called Peary Channel in northern Greenland did not exist, and that a single Inuit culture extends from Greenland into Russia. He did this last while spending 16 months traversing the Arctic from east to west.
Evening found the ship entering Disko Bay, and that provided sufficient reason to launch a Disko Party. It began with the staff, duly kitted out, performing a beautifully choreographed line dance directed by Jocelyn Langford, who had brought aboard a large contingent of Roads Scholars. With David Newland urging people to outdo themselves, several dancers showed moves so distinctive that expedition leader Stefan Kindberg hurried to the bridge to call the producer of Dancing With the Stars.
 
DAY FIFTEEN
Saturday, Sept. 19
Late afternoon in Ilulissat, voyagers returned from a 90-minute cruise  among the icebergs looking cold but exhilarated. The word on everybody’s lips: FANTASTIC! Oh, and again: “This has been the best day of the trip!” Ilulissat is the third-largest town in Greenland, with populations of 4,000 people and 6,000 dogs. Explorer-anthropologist Knud Rasmussen was born here, and his home has become a notable museum. But the main attraction is the Jakobshavn Icefjord, which has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 2004.
Flowing past the town at between 19 and 35 metres per day, it produces 20 billion tons of ice each year, and spawns vastly more icebergs than any glacier in the Arctic. Ice was much in evidence early this morning as the Ocean Endeavour sailed carefully through Disko Bay to anchor outside the town. The usual landing site was inaccessible to the ship, but expedition leaders identified a second option and voyagers went ashore by zodiac.

 About twenty passengers set out on a helicopter tour of the glacier, and came back raving about that. They had walked on the ice cap itself, and flew so low during their return – roughly 2000 feet up -- that they could see into the  crevasses. Most voyagers undertook the traditional three-kilometre walk through the colorful town to the boardwalk and beyond,
where we scrambled to a hilltop vantage point and looked out over the flowing icebergs. Today was all about the fantastical ice, and this would be one of those few instances in which the old adage holds true: in Ilulissat, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Evening brought the Adventure Canada Variety Show . . . and several passengers impressed their fellows as remarkably talented. Assistant expedition leader David Reid, well known for his evocative poems, and having declined an invitation to sing Flower of Scotland, kicked off the evening with a superb song. And who could forget the the visitation of Dr. John Rae, the skit skewering Stephen Harper, or the Inuit dance that ended the show? That said, nobody implored performers to quit their day jobs. [All photos by Sheena Fraser McGoogan]
Ken McGoogan
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Voyagers beat north along the American Route to the Pole




DAY NINE: Grise Fjord
Sept. 13
A larger-than-life monument at Grise Fjord, carved out of stone, depicts two Inuit: an adult female and a child. These figures face towards Resolute Bay, where a companion statue of a male Inuk gazes back at this memorial. Together, the two monuments speak to the separation of families that occurred as a result of a government-driven displacement -- an event whose repercussions have reverberated into the present day.
The statue here on Ellesmere Island, in the most northerly civilian settlement in Canada, was erected in 2010 to begin the healing process necessitated by the forced settlement of this community in the 1950s. Looty Pijamini did the carving. His family was one of those to arrive here in 1953 and 1955. In a move reminiscent of Scotland’s infamous Highland Clearances, the Canadian government evacuated Inuit families from northern Quebec, claiming that here they would flourish. In fact, the government engineered the relocation to assert sovereignty over the region. And here, even more than in Resolute Bay, the newcomers suffered.
At the two-year-old gymnasium, voyagers enjoyed a fashion show. They gathered here after touring the town in groups of twenty-five or thirty. One of the guides, seventeen-year-old Olaf Christianson, capped the usual tour by taking us past two sheds he owns, and showing off bear and muskox skins from animals he had taken. Along the way, and in a short onboard presentation before the landing, we learned that:
Grise Fiord was charted and named by Otto Sverdrup; The population is about 130, and one third of those are young people attending school, where they learn from five teachers; The town has an excellent medical centre, built in 1989. The ship’s arrival coincided with a regular visit by a dentist, and one member of the crew used his services; The original settlement, known as the Old Village, was located nine kilometres away, an exposed point that can be reached only by water. The town moved when the RCMP arrived in the 1960s. 
At 76 degrees 24 minutes north, Grise Fiord is 1544 kilometres from the Noth Pole.

DAY TEN:
Sept. 14

During the afternoon, driving west across Baffin Bay in rough seas, we entered the area in which American explorer Elisha Kent Kane accomplished an extraordinary escape across the polar ice. In 1855, from a latitude above 79 degrees, Kane led sixteen men to safety along the Greenland coast on a 980-kilometre, small-boat journey. The sailing came after the men hauled whaleboats to the mouth of Smith Sound, where they took to the water. This they did six decades before Ernest Shackleton worked his celebrated miracle-escape in the Antarctic.
Kane was seeking the 1845 Franklin expedition, which he and many others believed had got trapped in an Open Polar Sea beyond a great ring of ice at the top of the world. Five years before, sailing as a ship’s doctor on an American expedition encouraged by Lady Franklin, Kane had passed through what he described as “a crowd of noble icebergs.” Prevailing currents usually pushed this so-called “Middle Ice” to the west, opening a channel along the Greenland coast. Whalers would follow this laneway as far north as Melville Bay – essentially a massive indentation -- and then sail to the northwest, crossing Baffin Bay through the relatively ice-free North Water – waters that, in September 2015, we were now traversing.
Occasionally, to save valuable summertime weeks, voyagers tried to thread their way through the Middle Ice. In 1819, Edward Parry had succeeded in this; a few years later, he wasted two months trying. In July 1850, the highly literate Kane described the “vast plane of undulating ice” as creating an unspeakable din of crackling, grinding and splashing: “A great number of bergs, of shapes the most simple and most complicated, of colors blue, white, and earth-stained, were tangled in this floating field.” One evening, while standing on deck, he counted 240 icebergs “of primary magnitude.” Today, with the Little Ice Age having become ancient history, we churned through open seas.
In 1853, sailing now as captain of his own ship, the ingenious Kane passed through the Middle Ice by attaching his small wooden vessel – 26 metres, 144 tons – to an iceberg so huge that it tapped into a deep ocean current and flowed north against the waves prevailing on the surface. He achieved a new “farthest north” above 79 degrees, but spent two terrible winters trapped there.
Finally, in spring of 1855, Kane was forced to abandon the Advance. He and his men spent one month (May 17 to June 16) transporting supplies to Etah, then a permanent home to several extended families. From there, having reached open water, Kane said a fond farewell to his Inuit friends. With sixteen men (he had lost two before setting out, and one had perished along the way), he piled into two tiny boats and began his voyage south.
Eventually, after weeks battling winds, ice floes, and near starvation, he reached Upernavik, the northernmost Danish settlement, where he and his men stayed for a month before leaving on a supply ship. Kane had found no Open Polar Sea, but he did find what came to be called – after Robert Peary and Frederick Cook passed this way -- the American Route to the Pole.

Ken McGoogan
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Atwood, Belugas & Dundas Harbour: Why sail the Northwest Passage?




DAY EIGHT: Dundas Harbour 
Sept. 12

As the ship neared the foot of Croker Bay, voyagers crowded onto the deck, dazzled by the sunshine magnificence of Croker Glacier, essentially an ice river pouring down from the Devon Island ice cap. This was our first look at big ice and we liked it. The bay takes its name from John Wilson Croker, who served as first secretary of the Admiralty in the early 1800s.
In 1818, some distance to the west of here, Royal Navy Captain John Ross attached the name Croker to the Croker Mountains, which apparently extended across Lancaster Sound. When these mountains proved to be a fata morgana, an Arctic mirage, the British Admiralty shifted the name to this deep bay on Devon Island. Oh, and to the Admiralty, John Ross became persona non grata.
Late in the morning, Margaret Atwood entertained with an autobiographical talk she called My Life & Writing (1939-2015). She started with her ancestors, traced her childhood through old family photos, and followed the trajectory of her career from poetry readings at the Bohemian Embassy in Toronto, through The Handmaid’s Tale, a breakout book that made her “a little bit famous,” and on to the recent story collection Stone Mattress, which drew on a previous Adventure Canada voyage for its title story. In response to a question about why she kept writing, Atwood answered, “Why stop?” Writers are driven not by external rewards, but by a desire to do what they do.
Afternoon sunshine accompanied us to Dundas Harbour under a clear blue sky. The abandoned RCMP post was our destination. It faces southwest over Bernier Bay, so-called in commemoration of a 1906 stopover by Joseph Bernier. Here we found half a dozen beluga whales cavorting within five metres of the shoreline – an attraction that alone was worth the price of admission.
 At the RCMP site, several buildings remain standing: a detachment building (two-person living quarters), a separate house for Inuit hunters, two latrines, a couple of storehouses, and a dog corral. The main residence, which features considerable graffiti, contains a few bottles and several books, the most curious of which is  Dog Crusoe and His Master by Robert Michael Ballantyne.
These buildings were erected in the 1920s to signal Canadian sovereignty. Passenger Dave Story drew attention to what, beyond the dog corral, appears to be the lay-out of yet another large square dwelling, marked by stones (probably a tent-like communal centre for Inuit hunters). On a hill overlooking these buildings stands a white-fenced cemetery containing two old graves marked by new gravestones.
Here we find the graves of constables Victor Maisonneuve (1899-1926) and William Robert Stephens (1902-1927). The first committed suicide, the second died while hunting. The HBC rented the outpost briefly in the 1930s, and the RCMP maintained it until 1951, when it moved to the less isolated Craig Harbour. The Mounties continue to maintain the cemetery. In 1944, during the return voyage of the St. Roch through the Northwest Passage, Henry Larsen called in here. , , ,
Ken McGoogan
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Before turning mainly to books about arctic exploration and Canadian history, Ken McGoogan worked for two decades as a journalist at major dailies in Toronto, Calgary, and Montreal. He teaches creative nonfiction writing through the University of Toronto and in the MFA program at King’s College in Halifax. Ken served as chair of the Public Lending Right Commission, has written recently for Canada’s History, Canadian Geographic, and Maclean’s, and sails with Adventure Canada as a resource historian. Based in Toronto, he has given talks and presentations across Canada, from Dawson City to Dartmouth, and in places as different as Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Hobart.