Baffin Island
Baffin
Island, the fifth largest on the planet, was our destination and the
Kapitan Khlebnikov, a Russian diesel powered icebreaker, was the means
by which our group made the circumnavigation of some 3,300 nautical
miles. Two-thirds of the island lie above the Arctic Circle, and Baffin
had a population of 11,000 in 2004. Part of the new Canadian First
Peoples Territory of Nunavut which was granted political autonomy in
1999, Baffin is home to the Territory's capital Iqaluit. While we saw
many polar bears and some walrus, and bowhead and beluga whales were
sighted in the distance, perhaps it was the geology and the incessant
views of receding glaciers which most impressed me. We visited the
villages of Cape Dorset (actually on a small nearby island), Pangnirtung
and Pond Inlet, a number of historic sites, both paleo-arctic and
modern, and I was among the few who chartered one of our helicopters for
flightseeing over Auyuittuk National Park. Other shorter flightseeing
trip were made on the ship’s two helicopters with plentiful
opportunities to see glacial recession from above. No port facilities
existed where we traveled, and landings, including embarkation and
disembarkation, were made by 10 passenger Zodiacs. The seas remained
calm during our voyage and were handled well by the icebreaker. Without
a keel, these ships can roll at steep angles in angry seas, but we had
no such experiences. Although we encountered little sea ice, the trip
before ours was stuck for a week, and our trip began at Cambridge Bay,
hundreds of miles south and west of our planned embarkation at Resolute.
