A day at sea is a gift received with great joy and anticipation. Add ice and the value increases exponentially. There is a sense of peace and solitude that permeates the soul. One feels alone even when surrounded by newly found friends.
We parked in the ice in Franklin Strait for the evening, surrounded by silence and wilderness. As far as the wildlife was concerned we too were a part of this world and they showed no fear. Investigating all sides closely, a polar bear prowled, apparently curious about this strange sight. At precisely 0305, the sound of ice passing the hull began. It wasn’t so much the noise but the vibrations of the huge floes carved by our companion, the CGC Pierre Radisson, that woke us and stimulated enough curiosity for many to rouse themselves to watch the thick blue plates slip by.
Bellot Strait was a mystery and a barricade in the search for the Northwest Passage. It was first successfully navigated in 1937. We, however, faced its charging currents and danced across its whirlpools twice in 24 hours. Charcoal waters were littered with fractured frozen fragments centrally or near shore with undulating patterns of still-fast ice. Swirling currents grasped the plates and whisked them into revolving disks. In eddies pictures of an upside-down world were painted. A fine dusting of snow muted the darkness of the shore until daylight gave form to low hills and valleys. Fog softens the edges of everything, its downy blanket creating in one the desire to reach out and wrap oneself in its comforting robe. Gradually a pool of pastel colours coagulated in the sky above and bled into the whiteness surrounding it.
Prince Regent Inlet was the setting for the remaining chapters of the day, its waters alternately vast and smooth or adorned with every imaginable shape and size of ice floe. The cliffs of Somerset Island formed our western backdrop. Ringed seals lounged on softening floes along with larger bearded seals. Polar bears patrolled, mothers teaching young or singles stalking seals. Bowhead whales blew and fluked, attracting fulmars and kittiwakes in hopes of scavenging missed fragments. Periodically intellectual pursuits drew us inside as did platters of sustenance. But the best of the day was simply watching the sea and ice slip by.
