Northwest passage 10: Powell Inlet, FogMonday, September 8, 2025

20:57

Fog = no zodiac cruise in the ice

We’ll, I guess I can’t complain since we finally got to Beechey but the ‘can’t get there’ part of the trip has started. We were supposed to do a zodiac cruise in Croker Bay in the ice from the glacier. The Devon Island ice cap is the third largest in the world behind Antarctica and Greenland. We’ve been there before and it is really cool. The fog started rolling in about half way through our sail to Croker Bay and as Chris noted in his briefing, there’s not a lot of point in going to Croker Bay if, in order to see the glacier, you’d have to go so close the the face of the ice that it wouldn’t be safe.

I’ve been on enough of these expeditions to know that when they start to show slides of the ice charts it’s never a good thing. We’re not going to be able to get into Grise Fjord this trip. I think Chris did a better job of explaining the significance of ice than either of the others guys have. He went through the colours on the ice charts which correspond to how much of the surface is covered. That’s noted in tenths. Blue is great, no ice or about 1% so the captain had lots of chance to get around whatever ice is there.

We aren’t an ice breaker which rides up onto the ice and then the weight of the ship breaks up the ice. The coast guard ice breakers also release carbon dioxide bubbles that help to move the ice chunks out of the way. We are an ice pusher, not an official term but an accurately descriptive one. We have to rely on brute force and ignorance to push the ice out of the way so we can get past. The higher the concentration of ice, the more difficult it is to find somewhere to push the ice to. It’s like trying to shovel the driveway and the load on the shovel just gets heavier and heavier until you bog down unless you can shovel some of the snow off the the side before you tackle any more. Then there’s the thickness of the ice. According to the latest ice chart, there is 3/10 coverage going into Grise Fjord, but all it would take is one large chunk of ice, say 500 meters across to completely stop the ship.

Another consideration is wind. The wind is blowing from the north which will blow the ice into our path. I’m pretty sure since the famous round and round Baffin Bay expedition when we spent an extra day on the ship, they’ve established more stringent go / no go guidelines and we’re not going to Grise. Too bad I was hoping I could say that I’d been to the most northerly settlement in Canada. Knowing how many seasons it has taken to get to Beechey Island, I don’t think I’ll be adding Grise Fjord to my bucket list.

So what did we do today? We’ll, we landed in Powell Bay which is a new site for Adventure Canada. I was seriously dragging my butt today and I considered not doing the landing so I could sleep. I decided that I’d go and if I only wanted to spend half an hour that was fine. It was a bit wavy getting into the zodiacs and a bit splashy on the ride over. All the zodiac drivers do their best to keep us dry. I figure it’s all part of the adventure and there’s a reason I wear an expedition jacket, rain pants, and rubber boots. Speaking of boots, it’s interesting how many people tuck their rain pants into their boots even though they’ve been advised not to. It’s kind of like people who spread their ground sheets way out beyond the sides of their tents so they can be sure all the water will collect and run under the floor of the tent.

Back to the subject at hand: It was quite rocky where we landed and the rocks provided a good wind break so that it was quite warm. Pierre, one of the naturalists, had a spotting scope set up focused on a bunch of walruses sitting on a series of rocks sticking out the the sea. I’ve never seen walruses before so that was cool. [While I did get photos of the walruses, Michael's are way, way better. Michael was the official, professional photographer on the trip and he shared some of his photos in our post trip package. He was quiet and helpful and he takes amazing photographs! I don't think he'll read this but I want to let everyone know what a privilege it was to travel with him and how much I appreciate the photos he shared.]

Photo by Michael Winsor

It was really interesting to hear them bark. I can’t really describe the sound. Pierre said that when you hear them under water it sounds like someone hammering so they are called the carpenters of the sea. I had heard that walruses are quite stinky and you can sometimes smell them before you see them. Either these ones had put on their deodorant or we weren’t close enough to smell them and that was just fine with me.

I wandered around a bit and took some photos. There were lots of interesting shapes and textures in the rocks and on the tundra. Today’s good-luck feather was between my feet when I went to change into my hiking boots so I took a photo of that.

Good luck feather blends in with the rocks

With this many smurfs running all over the place, it’s nearly impossible to get landscape shots without people in them so I’ve decided to go with it and try to wait until a person or a group is in a position that helps to show the scale of the place. I got a few photos that I quite like.

I decided that I was going to have a bit of a walk because I wasn’t really getting a lot of exercise. Richard found a nice rock in the sun where he could sit and watch the world go by, and I headed off to see how far I could go in ten minutes. Then I was going to turn around and come back.

At about six minutes I was part way across a flat spot leading to a climb up some rocks to where the geologist was. I thought I’d see how far I could get, and, of course, when I was part way up I couldn’t simply turn around and come back down. I didn’t get up to the geologist but I got within a few meters of him before I turned back. I also got a different perspective on the landscape from a higher point.

It was colder today and all the little puddles were frozen over and there was frost not he ship’s rail first thing this morning when there was a beluga sighting. By the time I got up there I couldn’t see it. The sun was out for our landing and the rocks were dry. I always think of Richard’s dad when I’m moving in terrain such as we were in today. He taught me to point my feet downhill instead of going sideways because if you topple sideways you have a good chance of breaking your ankle whereas if you slip when your feet are pointed downhill you hope to end up on your butt.

Actually climbing on the rocks was my favourite part of the day. I did so much of that last year, finding my own route, checking behind me to make sure I could find a route down. Whenever I have a chance I will walk on the rocks rather than the vegetation between them. Again, that’s thanks to Richard’s dad who taught me to trust my boots the soles of which are meant to be sticky on rocks. When there are pebbles on top of rock slabs, or when the rocks are wet, that’s when you have to worry.

As I was descending I came to a spot where there was a good sized height difference to get over a rock and down to the next one. There was a very nice man in front of me and he asked if I needed help. I told him I was just picking my spot. One of the Adventure Canada team members was standing just a little way farther down. I chose the opposite side of the rock to the one taken by the man in front of me. I often talk to myself and I said, “Okay, first foot there, pole there, other foot there. Just like that.” Then I looked at the team member and said, rather smugly I admit, “This isn’t my first rodeo.” Her response was, “Clearly!” That felt really good considering the graceless landing I performed the other day. I haven’t taken the bandaid off my knee and most of the time I’m unaware that there is anything out of the ordinary going on with it. I know, I know 1. I’m incredibly lucky and 2. Don’t get cocky!

There’s a common denominator to most the falls I’ve taken in last few years: I catch the toe of my trailing foot and that sends me down. Today I had a few instances where I kicked the rock when I brought me trailing foot through. Instead of telling myself to pick up me feet, I found it more useful to tell myself to raise my toes so that I land with a very pronounced heel strike. When I remembered to do that, it seemed to help. So I’m going to try to be more mindful of my foot strikes in the hopes of remaining vertical for the rest of the trip.

I noticed just now as I checked the schedule on the TV in the room that the plan has changed from what it was a few hours ago. They had a specific landing site picked out and now it just says ‘Devon Island.’ I think we will be booting it for Greenland to stay out of the worst of the winds that are supposed to come in the next few days. As Chris, our expedition leader said at the briefing tonight, “This is not a bus tour.” We were finally able to set foot on Beechey and that’s a major win.

One last thing of note: Marc St. Onge, the geologist, is involved in a project that is trying to narrow down the route Franklin took in the north by matching samples of rocks retrieved from the collection on the Erebus, with rocks from various locations on our route. The partners in this work are The Geological Survey of Canada, Parks Canada, and Adventure Canada. He couldn’t tell us locations because he has signed a non-disclosure agreement that’s binding until the research has been published and peer reviewed, but he did say that as a result of the work last year and this year, there are four new data points on Franklin’s route. A few times this trip two zodiacs have been launched with the purpose of getting to a specific place to collect rock samples. This really is not a bus tour!