Oceans North Canada

Posted by Chris Debicki, expedition leader

Christopher Debicki, expedition leader, and Kristin Westdal, marine biologist and expedition research coordinator.

We will have time to post more on the just-finished expedition and assess the scientific data after we get some sleep. For now we will let the pictures speak for themselves and with your indulgence, thank a few folks.

No expedition of this complexity can occur without a host of people who have been unrecognized or under-recognized. Our month at sea was a massive collective effort, both aboard Arctic Endeavour and on terra firma in Greenland, Canada and the USA. 

Thanks first and foremost go to our Oceans North team, especially to our home base of Jeremy, David, Ruth, Patty, John, Alaina and Genevieve. Thanks also to support from Trevor, Gary, Louie and Terry. And of course to Scott, for his leadership and for making this whole project a reality.

Thanks also to the great people from all kinds of places who provided us advice, resources and encouragement, all of which were frequently tapped. Thanks to Pierre in Winnipeg for his sage counsel and support. Big shout out to Terry and Harry for crewing on the Newfoundland-Greenland crossing. Mammoth props to Matt for this too, and more. To Mads for Qeqertarsuaq generosity, and to David and Martin of Nussuaq for protecting us from ourselves aboard ice floes in Baffin Bay. 

Thanks to the Iqaluit crew, for holding the fort and for keeping it real.

Thanks to those I’ve missed, both for the help and for forgiving the omission.

And to the crew of the Arctic Endeavor, for putting up with me and a crazy impossible dream. To Bowen for injecting a new generation of cool. To Bob for elevating the whole game. Outi for Outi. Knut for safe passage. Hans Martin for humour. To Kristin for blood, sweat and tears, for dedication and for thriving in a tough environment. To Alex for quiet heroism. And to Sandy for late heroism.

Thank you bearded seal, for filling the sea with your song (when no one else was there for us).

Thank you bowhead, for showing up when we needed you.

Thank you narwhal, for finishing a migration that we could not.

Thank you polar bears, for ignoring us.

Thank you netsik, for sustaining us.

Posted by Chris Debicki, expedition leader

Even before the drone of the helicopter faded away, the noise coming from the floe edge was unmistakable. Whales. Narwhal. A cacophony of heaves, sighs, clicks, snorts and trills.  

On Sandy’s direction, we placed what would be our last camp a couple hundred metres from the open water. Even without binoculars, we could see polar bears on both sides. They were full from gorging, Sandy reassured us.

Kristin, Alex and I could hardly contain ourselves. We had been following the narwhal migration for a month, and yet until now the whales had been ghosts on a horizon. Excited, we made for the floe edge even before we made camp.

Waves gently lapped against the floe edge’s icy shore. The salty ice undulated, and before us a sight I will never forget—narwhal in numbers that defied any easy estimate. No doubt, there were hundreds of narwhal swimming in pods of two to six, often abreast. There were calves glued to mothers and groups of males with tusks of all sizes, some swimming parallel with the ice edge, some floating. Other whales were plunging into and under the ice, the great depths of their dives evident in their heaving breaths.

Hours elapsed. Kristin focused on recording the narwhal vocalizations for our acoustic science studies. Sandy pointed out the field techniques for identifying whales by age and gender. Alex basked in the joy of making it home just in time to camp on his beloved floe edge. 

Sandy Qaunaq, Pond Inlet hunter and mechanic.

Finally, utterly spent, we retired to our tent as a midnight breeze broke the stillness. We talked of our teammates aboard Arctic Endeavour, and wished that they were sharing this day with us.  Alex, Sandy and I alternated on bear watch throughout the night. But for the odd curious cub (easily dissuaded), our last night together at sea was without interruption until 10 a.m. the next day, when the unmistakable sound of helicopter blades cut through the morning fog. 

Narwhal tusks piercing the sky.

Posted by Chris Debicki, expedition leader

Wednesday, July 6

For an hour and a half, the flight from Upernavik was a silent one. The drone of the engines didn’t interfere with conversation — no one on the team was talking. 

Instead, our heads were at the windows, looking over Baffin Bay unfolding below. We soon saw the ice that had stopped the Arctic Endeavour in its tracks. The sight from above was oddly familiar: After looking at so much satellite imagery of this very same place, I realized that my eyes had completed our voyage on countless occasions in the last 30 days.

The realization quickly faded when the highlands of East Baffin and Bylot Island appeared on the horizon. To the north, Lancaster Sound emerged as an ice-free open sea. To the east, Eclipse Sound was holding onto its land-fast ice.

To our relief, Pond Inlet still had its floe edge and thus a platform for us to camp and work. Better yet, even at turbo-prop speed several hundred feet above sea level, we could see, unmistakably, that whales were converging at the ice edge. Spontaneous cheers erupted in the cabin. Another great sight: We flew over hunters camped on that edge. Alex managed to make out his dad’s camp.

Upon arrival in Pond Inlet, our tentative plan was to head for the floe edge as soon as we had an update from returning hunters. We met up with Sandy Qaunaq, an experienced mechanic and hunter and a very close friend of Alex’s. When I was planning this expedition, I very much wanted Sandy to join us. Like Alex, Sandy is one of those Nunavut renaissance guys; he takes his Blackberry with him on hunting trips (he is apparently prolific and hilarious on Facebook), but also relies on traditional skills that haven’t been bested.   

Waiting for word from the floe edge, we filled Sandy in on our voyage. Finally, at 3 a.m., we received news that the last hunters were returning from the floe edge, Alex’s dad and uncles amongst them. We rushed out to help.

It had obviously been a tough slog home. In the span of a few hours, the sea ice around town had receded dramatically. We spent the next two or three hours ferrying snowmobiles (“machines,” as they are called), qamutiqs (sleds full of supplies that are pulled behind the machines) and gear from the ice to shore. Chosen both because of his slight frame and cool nerves (he really is fearless), Sandy drove the largest snowmobile to shore, crossing several hundred metres of open water in a feat that appeared to defy gravity.

By the time we’d finished ferrying gear safely ashore, Alex and Sandy had the information we needed. It was advice we didn’t want to hear, but could not ignore: Travel by ice to the floe edge was no longer an option. What we didn’t know then was that 12 hours later, we’d be flying in a small helicopter to that same floe edge.

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader

As we travel to Upernavik, our last destination aboard the Arctic Endeavour, we are starting to reflect on our project. If it’s any indication, our spirits are high. The sun-splattered bergs and glistening snow peaks are just as beautiful today as they were a month ago.

It will take us a few weeks to fully evaluate how well our small boat science expedition worked in the Arctic. But at this point, I am convinced that it has provided a useful platform for doing scientific studies in this environment. A small boat offers scientists a low-cost option for ocean research. 

We owe a lot of credit to the competence and dedication of the Newfoundland team that helped us turn a fishing vessel into a viable research platform. We had little time to prepare the boat and I called in many favours. The Arctic Endeavour would not have left the dock on time without help from my brother, a professional sailor, and my stepfather, an engineer.

As this ice season proved, there are limitations to small boat operations in these ice-clogged waters. Icebreakers remain the only workable platform when it comes to penetrating heavy ice. By necessity, we’ve been operating in the margins, mostly avoiding ice of densities of 60 percent or greater.   

Testing the ice.

Based on ice data, we determined that we would have been able to complete the route across the North Water Polynya and into Lancaster Sound during eight out of the last 10 years — and might have made it in 2004, but not 2005. The odds of a successful crossing at this time of year in the two previous decades were reduced but still good even with significantly more ice cover.

What we knew going in — and what became clear as we stared into the vast wall of consolidated pack ice in Baffin Bay and Melville Bay — was that information about average and median ice extent and ice concentration is only moderately useful. What can be counted on in the Arctic is variability. The extremes are in many ways the real norm. And it is on those extreme conditions that good plans must rest.

Fortunately, we created a scientific plan that kept us very busy, even when ice blocked our expected route. Thanks to the extra time we’ve had off Greenland, we’ve completed hours of recordings of dozens of bowhead during a stage in their migration that has not been previously captured. 

We return with a series of acoustic snapshots of whales communicating with one another as they make their great journey across Baffin Bay. Many of these whales will continue through Lancaster Sound into Nunavut waters, a region that Inuit are working to protect by establishing a national marine conservation area. With this new data, Outi and other marine biologists will piece together a more complete picture of bowhead communication and movement.

Unfortunately, ice conditions meant that some of our research projects could not be completed this season. Stubborn sea ice forced us ashore on several occasions.  Ironically, these unexpected stops in villages became perhaps the highlight of the voyage as we sought advice and assistance from the Greenlandic people who know these waters the best.

Our local guide looking for signs of whales.

Any small boat expedition operating in heavy sea ice must be prepared to drastically modify plans on short notice. Kristin worked hard to adapt our scientific programme to the whims of a half-frozen ocean that didn’t care about our human machinations. 

It is critical that a team embark on a project like this with the knowledge that uncertainty will rule. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Living in very close quarters for extended periods, our crew inevitably brought different personal and professional goals. Some goals couldn’t be achieved. Some were accomplished at the expense of others. Fortunately, the expectations of this team were calibrated to accommodate this.  

Once we arrive in Upernavik, Kristin, Alex and I will be flying to Pond Inlet. That's Alex's home community and sits on the northern coast of Baffin Bay near Lancaster Sound. Stay tuned.

Photo credit: Arcadia 

Posted by: Kristin Westdal, marine biologist

We noticed a steady increase in the number of eider ducks as we traveled north up the Greenland coast. As we made our way by small boat into pack ice off the coast of Nuussuaq, we passed Edderfugleøer, a tiny smattering of islands thirty kilometres offshore. These windswept granite humps live up to their name, supporting a large eider colony in the summer. The eider in the photo is the Common Eider, Somateria mollissima, known to nest in colonies along the coast in the circumpolar north.

This male still sports winter plumage: black and white with an olive green colouration on the back of the neck. Male plumage is dark brown in summer. The female has more understated brown and black colouration all year. The Common Eider is the largest duck in North America and the most numerous and widespread of the seven subspecies of eiders worldwide. Locals tell us that eiders in the region have started nesting and eggs have been seen. One of the local hunters, David, who was our guide when we camped offshore in the ice pointed out birds that were ready to lay their eggs based on their flight patterns and laboured take-off.

Eiders lay eggs once a year between June and September and a typical nest will contain two to seven eggs. The females not only sit on their eggs to incubate them but line their nest with down plucked from their own bodies, adding new meaning to the phrase ‘giving of one’s self’! They typically nest on islands or coastline. Nesting habitat varies from open areas or in grasses and weeds to under shrubs and spruce trees.

About 75 percent of their diet is mollusks, the rest being a variety of crustaceans. Eiders dive to depths of 20 metres to feed on mollusks and crustaceans including mussels, clams, scallops and urchins.

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader

We reached Melville Bay late Wednesday night before running into what we’ve come to refer to as “The Wall”—the consolidated pack ice that has prevented us from completing our intended route to Lancaster Sound by boat. The ice, while constantly moving, grinding and buckling, is still thick enough to easily stop Arctic Endeavour in its tracks.

In the 19th century, whalers dreaded sailing through Melville Bay with its notoriously bad ice conditions and a harbourless coastline. American explorer Elisha Kane described it 160 years ago as a “mysterious region of terrors.” But we were lucky and the sea remained calm enough to see ripples for hundreds of metres while the now-familiar sound of bowhead exhalations filled the air.

Thanks to satellite imagery from NASA, University of Bremen in Germany, Canadian Ice Service and MDA Geospatial Services, we’ve known for a number of days that our hopes of following the whale migration across the North Water Polynya would not be possible this season. We proceeded north yesterday having already accepted this outcome, so our turnaround at The Wall wasn’t such a tough pill to swallow. Once we got there and dropped the hydrophone into the becalmed sea, we realized we were surrounded by bowhead.

Immediately, we lowered the tender over the side and Outi and Alex, dressed in flotation suits and armed with a camera, set off to get some I.D. photos of bowhead to match with the acoustics. They were successful. Our practice has been to get only as close as necessary for pictures. With a long lens, Outi was able to get some photos of individual markings that will be useful for future sightings. 

Our expedition members have relied on top notch satellite technology to stay in touch during this month-long journey. But 19th-century British explorers obviously didn’t have that luxury. They faced huge challenges while searching for the Northwest Passage: vessels became trapped in ice for the winter, food rations ran out, illnesses took their toll.

As ship after ship vanished into the region’s mysterious labyrinth of straits and sounds, sailors had to get creative about communicating with other ships, rescue parties and folks back home. The first thing explorers did after reaching the 65th parallel north was to start dropping sealed bottles overboard that contained messages with dates, ship locations and where they were headed. When they landed on the coast of North America, they hoisted a flag with the Union Jack and put a sealed bottle at its base noting their achievement and travel plans.

During a trip to try to find the lost Franklin Expedition, explorer Sir James Ross trapped Arctic foxes and attached copper collars around their necks with messages noting his ship’s position and supply cache locations. Then he’d set the foxes free, hoping they might encounter the missing crew. Sometimes rescuers would launch message-filled helium balloons with explosive time fuses that would burst and release notes for lost sailors. Local Inuit often helped as well by passing on crucial information.

Perhaps the most exotic form of emergency communication was the use of homing pigeons. Sir James Ross’ uncle took four pigeons with him when he sailed north to try to rescue Sir John Franklin. His plan was to release two pigeons with messages if his ship got trapped in ice and the other two if he found Franklin. He never did find the missing explorer. But Ross’ uncle did get stuck in ice near Melville Island in the Northwest Passage and decided to try using pigeon 911. The good news is that one pigeon made it home to Ayrshire, Scotland, a 2,400 mile journey. The bad news? The pigeon lost the message that Ross had attached.

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader

Tasiusaq villagers, Lars and son Erni. Photo: Kristin Westdal

When we ran into a wall of offshore ice a week ago, we realized that our incomplete nautical charts meant we needed to supplement our satellite information with advice from Greenlanders in the tiny communities along the coast. We were lucky to stop in Tasiusaq, a village with about 300 people, depending on who you ask.

When we arrived onshore, there was almost no one in sight and at first it felt like people were apprehensive about meeting us. The village’s solitary shop was locked. Fortunately, after a few anxious minutes, a man named Lars with a great smile greeted us and immediately invited the lot of us for coffee. A few minutes later, we were in a warm kitchen, sipping strong coffee and having a conversation in a four-language mash-up of Greenlandic, Inuktitut, English and Danish.

We peppered Lars with questions: What do you know about ice conditions ahead? Lars, who is responsible for the village’s electricity generation, said he hadn’t been out recently. But he had heard of a supply ship that was unable to reach two communities to the north. Are there narwhal in the vicinity, we asked? Lars said that he’d heard from local hunters that narwhal had been seen a few weeks ago. But Tasiusaq is a fishing community and the focus here is on Greenlandic halibut that is processed in the little fish plant off the pier. He recommended that we head to a community called Nutarmiut where people rely more on subsistence hunting. Ironically, Nutarmiut shows up on our 2001 charts—the most recent available—as an abandoned settlement.

While Alex talked with Lars, Kristin kept our host’s son Erni entertained by going through pictures of sea birds and marine mammals found in her field guides. The little boy was very familiar with all of them. To bridge the language gap, Kristin devised a system where she pointed at pictures and Erni would tell her if that animal or bird could be found in the region. He would either raise his eyebrows in the Inuit/Greenlandic indication for “yes” or say “no” by scrunching up his face and shrugging his shoulders or shaking his head.

When Kristin mistakenly pointed to a large image of a Pacific Fulmar, Erni was quick to shake his head and show her a picture of its cousin, the Atlantic Fulmar that is indigenous to these waters — and happened to be flying around right outside their door. Less colourful and sleek than some Arctic birds (like the guillemot, with its matching red feet and throat) fulmars are still fascinating and have special defensive powers that other seabirds don’t have: spitting vomit on their foes!

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader

Whales! Lots of whales! After two days out on the ice, we have just returned to the ship. We left Nutarmiut on Monday with two Greenlandic guides, David and Martin, in their small hunting boats. They took us well into the ice, where we pulled the boats onto a somewhat stable floe and waited. And waited. And waited. We were visited by plenty of curious seals, including almost every seal species in these waters: ringed, hooded, bearded and harp.

Five or six hours after we made our first camp, the unmistakable sound of a mighty bowhead exhaling filled the air. Pppsssh. Pppsssh. Pppssh That’s the closest I can get: not just one “P” because it’s really quite a burst of air and water through that blowhole. We can hear bowhead from several kilometres away with the naked ear.

Over the next 24 hours, we collected as much acoustic data as we could and paired some of it up with visual identifications. Outi is pleased with these results and plans to do more acoustic work this week.

We slept sporadically on the ice — several pairs of eyes and ears alert at all times, as much for lurking polar bears as whales. Sometime Monday night during the sunset that never sets, we were frantically shaken awake by David, our guide. The ice lead (crack) we’d used to penetrate the pack was closing, and quickly. No time for an organized takedown of our little camp. We hastily piled gear back into the boat and were off, sneaking through a narrow channel just as it closed. An hour later, we settled on a new floe. Alex said he thought it looked like a better vantage point for spotting narwhal. Unfortunately, we did not see any narwhal. But we saw and heard many more bowhead throughout the next night and day.

I slept better in the open air rather than inside the covered boat where the kerosene heater filled my nose and lungs with soot. Neither option was particularly warm. I kept my floater suit on throughout what passed for “night.”

We met up with the Arctic Endeavour late Wednesday afternoon in the open sea, an amazing feat of coordination. Not really. Thanks to GPS, satellite phone and VHF we knew exactly where to find the ship, but it still felt very Mission Impossible.

Despite the minor hardships, the trip out onto the ice with our guides David and Martin was for all of us one of the highlights of the expedition. It started as a business transaction: we needed local expertise to get us into this ice in a safe and productive manner. But when we said goodbye to David and Martin upon our return to the Arctic Endeavour, we all agreed that we were really lucky to have met these guys. They were not only amazingly competent guides, they generously shared what they know about the sea around us. We share a common love of this ocean and its inhabitants. After a barbeque and guitar-playing on the roof of the boat in the calmest, bluest sea I’ve ever seen, we bid farewell to two new friends.

We’ve now concluded that our window for pushing north is closing. Without enough open water ahead, we are making our last push north on Wednesday night. We will proceed until we hit the "wall" — the barrier of dense pack ice that remains in Melville Bay. When we can go no farther, we will turn around and begin our final series of acoustic monitoring along the ice edge. We plan to work until we arrive in Upernavik sometime on Saturday. From there, we will fly to Pond Inlet, the shortest route back to Canada. We will complete this last leg of following the Arctic whale migration by air. We will be following much the same route as the bowhead and narwhal populations that swim from this coast through Lancaster Sound and into the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Posted by: Outi Tervo, marine biologist 

Bowhead swimming in the distance amidst ice.

The bowhead acoustic work we’ve been doing is very exciting. This is the first time acoustic data has been collected in this region during the whales’ northward migration. That data will help marine biologists gain a better understanding of these remarkable creatures.

The bowhead whales we have seen and heard off the West Greenland coast belong to the Davis Strait – Baffin Bay population numbering about 4000, the second largest population after those found in the Bering Sea and Beaufort Sea. The whales leave their winter and spring aggregation area in Disko Bay in late May and early June and head north along the coast of Greenland and finally cross over Baffin Bay towards Lancaster Sound. By the time the whales leave the Disko Bay area, they have more or less stopped singing after a very active singing period from February to mid April.

Bowhead whales have an extensive acoustic repertoire and vocalize throughout most of the year. Bowhead whale acoustic signals can be divided into simple frequency modulated (FM) calls, complex amplitude modulated (AM) calls and songs. Simple FM calls are short, narrowband tonal calls often referred to as moans. Complex AM calls are broader band signals with pulsive components incorporated into a tonal part giving these signals a harsher and coarser sound. Whale songs, like the songs of birds, are defined as a series of stereotyped tonal song notes repeated in a pattern. All these vocal signals are thought to function for communication. Songs have also thought to have significance in bowhead whales’ breeding behaviour and mate choices.

The bowhead whale sounds we have recorded so far have been simple FM and complex AM calls. Due to the low frequencies of these signals, they attenuate (lose intensity) very little in water and therefore have the potential for long range communication. These calls could probably enable individual whales that are more than 100 kilometres apart to stay in contact with each other and maintain group cohesion during migration. Some data also indicates that bowhead whales can use the echoes of their own vocalizations for discriminating between different types of ice. It could be that the low frequency moans of bowhead whales that we have heard are helping the whales find their way in the underwater maze of ice.

The bowhead whale is a large baleen whale species with a circumpolar distribution in the Arctic. They reach an average length of 18 metres when full grown and can weigh up to 80 tons. Bowhead whales do not possess any teeth but instead use their numerous baleen plates to filter microscopic crustaceans from the water. They have the longest and most numerous baleen plates of baleen whales. Bowhead whales are highly adapted to their ice-filled environment. They can break through up to 60-centimetres of ice, have the thickest insulating blubber layer of any whales and, like belugas and narwhals, lack a dorsal fin that could be damaged when scratching against sea ice. Bowhead whales can reach an age of more than 100 years making them one of the longest-lived animals on earth.

Posted by: Trevor Taylor, policy director, Oceans North Canada 

Narwhal photo: Lyda Hill

While the Arctic Endeavour continues its push north into the ice off the Greenland coast, I visited Lancaster Sound on the Canadian side of Baffin Bay on a fact-finding trip. I work as policy director for Oceans North Canada. I arrived with other members of our team in the hamlet of Pond Inlet on Eclipse Sound for a trip out to the floe edge where the still-frozen sound meets the open waters of Baffin Bay. This nutrient-rich margin of ice is where marine life abounds in the early Arctic summer. 

We flew 38 nautical miles across Eclipse Sound to the southeast of Bylot Island and camped at Button Point. Scrambling up ridges and walking along sea ice starting to break up we witnessed a small part of what makes the Lancaster Sound region so important. We saw a polar bear ambling along the ice edge before plunging in to capture a seal; small groups of narwhal swimming along the margin of the ice, surfacing with their characteristic tooth flashing in the sun; Canada and Arctic snow geese flying overhead; and seals popping their heads up from breathing holes they maintain throughout the winter. 

Humans have been tightly integrated into this environment for thousands of years and still are. Snow machines pulling komatiks (wooden sleds) from Pond Inlet arrived on the floe edge for traditional Inuit harvesting including gathering sea bird eggs from the craggy cliffs and hunting seals and narwhal for food to be shared with the community. 

Polar bear photo: Lyda Hill

Hunters from Pond Inlet and other communities in the region have been leaders in efforts to protect Lancaster Sound for more than 30 years. Just last year, these communities insisted that no oil and gas activities should occur in these waters in order to protect the whale migration. I stood with the Inuit leader for Baffin Island last December and listened as the Canadian environment minister proposed a park boundary for Lancaster Sound and pledged that no oil and gas activity would take place while the park is being created – including the spectacular area of the floe edge where we just camped. 

The delay caused by the ice in northern Greenland to the Arctic Endeavour’s planned route is a potent reminder that ice is still a major factor for life in in Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound. That’s true for industry, tourism, scientific work or traditional Inuit activities. This year the ice is doing its part to continue to protect the Arctic whale migration in this magical place. But the overall trend in the Arctic including Baffin Bay is for earlier melting and less ice. Anomalies such as this year’s pack ice that the Arctic Endeavour encountered cannot be relied upon. Humans will have to step up to protect the Arctic from inappropriate schemes made possible by receding ice. As elders and hunters from Pond Inlet and similar hamlets in the region remind us, a National Marine Conservation Area for Lancaster Sound is a good place to start.

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader 

Alex Ootoowak shows our hosts in Nutarmiut pictures of life in Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet).

We arrived in the village of Nuussuaq yesterday and plan to head out today with local guides to explore the floe edge north of here where narwhal have been sighted. 

We first heard about narwhal sightings while in Nutarmiut on the weekend. No sooner had we weighed anchor there than six people came out by boat to greet us and invite us ashore for coffee and cookies. None of our expedition members speak Greenlandic fluently. But Alex, who speaks Inuktitut, has found Greenlandic easier to understand as we travel north. And it is Alex whom Greenlanders are most interested in talking to. They feel an immediate connection with Alex, who is from Pond Inlet on the Canadian side of Baffin Bay.

Our hosts gave us plenty of helpful advice during their conversation with Alex. They told us that narwhal had been seen in the area only a week or so ago and they predicted more would be at the floe edge close to Nuussuaq. An older man named Pauluq suggested a potential route to help us skirt a wall of drifting pack ice that will otherwise impede our progress.  As a word of caution, he also told the story of three small hunting boats that got pinched in the ice off the Nuussuaq Peninsula only weeks ago. Sadly, several lives were lost and the rescue operation recovered only two of the boats. 

Posted by: Knut Espen Solberg, captain 

Currently, Baffin Bay is filled with predominantly first year ice, as opposed to multiyear ice that survives at least one summer and continues to grow.  I have been surprised by just how thick much of this ice has been. This winter was not extremely cold in this part of the world but spring arrived late. Many inlets and fjords are still filled with fast ice -- ice that is attached to the shore. 

This week we've capitalized on a recent, narrow open water lead that has given us access to the northern waters and communities of the Upernavik district. But our route to Melville Bay is still inaccessible. This persistent ice has caused major problems for northern Greenlanders in this region as their resupply vessel was unable to penetrate the ice, leaving several villages short on all kinds of products we take for granted. 

In most years, the main pack ice has been located along the coast of Baffin Island, giving access to the North Water Polynya through an open water route through Melville Bay. However, this year a stationary low pressure system is situated over northwestern Greenland. This anomaly has caused the main pack ice to shift eastward, causing more than 90 percent ice cover in Melville Bay and much of Baffin Bay. This ice makes access to the North Water Polynya impossible right now for non-icebreaking vessels. 

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader 

Thick fog rolled in on Thursday afternoon, halting our progress once we’d completed our CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) studies in the Upernavik Icefjord. That made travel unsafe and we pulled into a small, protected cove for the night. 

The weather made it too risky to try to dodge the usual hazards of icebergs and sea ice. We've also discovered that charts in this region are missing critical information. Huge areas have not been sounded and many of the depth readings on our nautical charts are not accurate. This is a mountainous region of sharp cliffs and the sea bottom is similarly rugged. Shallow water appears without warning. 

After 24 hours of work, this break afforded Knut and I some time to seriously discuss the most recent ice reports. The reports do not look good. Melville Bay is not opening up in the way we had hoped. This year may turn out to be the “worst” ice year in a decade in this region. I put “worst” in quotations because it is obviously silly to attach a negative judgment to sea ice. This is the same ice cover that acts as one of the world’s most important cooling systems. That's because sea ice, with its white surface, reflects much more of the sun’s radiation than does open water. 

The ice also protects migrating whales. Ninety percent ice cover is no obstacle to these marine mammals. What will happen to bowhead and narwhal migration patterns if the icescape continues to change so dramatically? What kind of industries will move in if these regions become accessible? What measures to protect this ecosystem will be in place before this happens? 

Even though there has been a pronounced decline in sea ice extent in this part of the Arctic over the last decade, we knew that climate modeling experts still predict great variability form year to year. This is turning out to be one of those years.  

Our experience with heavier than average sea ice –- at least for recent years -- may also serve as a reminder that increased commercial activity in the Arctic must take into account these extreme shifts in ice conditions. That's essential to lower the risk of accidents in an area without the infrastructure to respond.  

Posted by: Kristin Westdal, marine biologist

We just completed our last CTD (or conductivity, temperature, depth) station at the head of the 70-kilometre-long Upernavik Icefjord where the Upernavik Glacier meets the sea. This glacier, the northern hemisphere’s greatest freshwater reserve, is retreating causing long-buried land formations to emerge. It's happening so quickly that our paper charts, printed in 2001, no longer accurately reflect what this coastline looks like.  

The CTD is a cylindrical electronic instrument that measures conductivity, temperature and pressure in water. Water pumps through the CTD’s sensors and measurements are collected continuously as we use our winch to lower the device vertically below the surface. The CTD we have on the Arctic Endeavour is a Sea-Bird SBE19plus SEACAT Profiler and can collect information at depths up to 600 meters. CTDs have been used since the 1980s and Knut and Hans Martin have worked with them for many years along the east and west coast of Greenland. Oceanographers can use the data to study localized circulation, ocean currents and melt rate of adjacent ice caps. The information we collected over the last day will be used to study water circulation in this fjord system.  

We began collecting CTD data yesterday as we entered the fjord, completing stations at five-mile intervals in a straight line transect. Each stop required us to spend 1½ hours patiently babysitting the CTD, including operating the hydraulic winch and keeping accurate notes. Fortunately, we’re enjoying spectacular views as we work!

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader

The Arctic Endeavour shuddered early this morning in Upernavik as three cannon shots burst through the fog in celebration of Greenland’s National Day. After the cannon fire, we heard church bells ringing. Next came speeches in town and hymn singing. 

Community groups are hosting “Kaffemik” across town. Kaffemik parties are a Greenlandic institution. They occur on birthdays and other special days such as this. Kaffemik is open to everyone. Guests understand that they should not stay too long, or eat too much cake and pastries, so that everyone gets a chance to visit and enjoy the festivities.  

Townsfolk donned the national dress today. Women are wearing exquisite beadwork, lace and wool. Embroidered stockings bridge sealskin pants and kamiks, or traditional boots. Their clothes are a lovely contrast to the modest simplicity of the male costume: a plain white anorak, without even fur trim on the hood. 

Since 2008, when Greenlanders voted for more autonomy from Denmark, the country has taken great strides towards full statehood. Everywhere we go, people are happy to talk about the development of their nation. It's a collective project made real in the hands of fishermen and plant workers, parents and truck drivers, teachers, pilots and hunters. Greenlanders are quietly building a modern economy while safeguarding language and tradition. The qajaq (kayak) still has a place in this old-new country alongside the outboard engine. For a population of less than 60,000, fostering development and tradition is a balancing act.

Greenland’s marine resources have shaped local traditions and are critical to its economic future. People here bristle when outside organizations try to tell them how to develop their natural resources. Greenlanders are best positioned to make decisions to protect the ecology of the sea around them. The best thing we as outsiders can do is take steps to support a strong, sustainable Greenlandic national dream.