Lancaster Sound
Today begins with ice as we enter Lancaster Sound. This is the Northwest Passage. It is also our first encounter with sea ice…first year, multiyear, as well as glacial bergs, growlers and brash. This is also the first sea ice for the National Geographic Explorer. As we marvel at the sense searing beauty of the frozen sea fragments from winters past, the ship confidently moves aside hundred ton floes. She responds with just a bit of “shiver in her timbers”. Our stoic captain remarks “she does well”.
Fulmars carve the crystalline air above the massive snow veneered slabs. Some are freshly tracked by polar bears, others are piled with the jumbled ice blocks that are evidence of winter storm built pressure ridges. In the distance, the northern-most cape of Baffin Island is couloired and dusted with the first snow of the season. These venerated place names let us know we are finally traveling in the wake of Franklin, Amundson, and countless other arctic explorers.
Later we cross Parry Channel and find some lee in a fjord, deeply incised in the south coast of Devon Island. Here we try to comprehend the grand canyon belittling unconformity created by Ordovician limestones set on top of the Archean Canadian Shield. A fitting setting for these oldest rocks in the world. The towering, fossiliferous walls create an early sunset at 10:00 pm. The light turns magical as two dozen hauled out walruses bid us good night.
Today begins with ice as we enter Lancaster Sound. This is the Northwest Passage. It is also our first encounter with sea ice…first year, multiyear, as well as glacial bergs, growlers and brash. This is also the first sea ice for the National Geographic Explorer. As we marvel at the sense searing beauty of the frozen sea fragments from winters past, the ship confidently moves aside hundred ton floes. She responds with just a bit of “shiver in her timbers”. Our stoic captain remarks “she does well”.
Fulmars carve the crystalline air above the massive snow veneered slabs. Some are freshly tracked by polar bears, others are piled with the jumbled ice blocks that are evidence of winter storm built pressure ridges. In the distance, the northern-most cape of Baffin Island is couloired and dusted with the first snow of the season. These venerated place names let us know we are finally traveling in the wake of Franklin, Amundson, and countless other arctic explorers.
Later we cross Parry Channel and find some lee in a fjord, deeply incised in the south coast of Devon Island. Here we try to comprehend the grand canyon belittling unconformity created by Ordovician limestones set on top of the Archean Canadian Shield. A fitting setting for these oldest rocks in the world. The towering, fossiliferous walls create an early sunset at 10:00 pm. The light turns magical as two dozen hauled out walruses bid us good night.
