Planes, trains & automobiles & a ship to Iceland, EastGreenland and NE Canada

[RooFlyer]

Sod the polar bears, just look at those rock formations. Phwoaaaar!

(Just kidding about the bears - deeply envious of sighting those.)

 

[love_the_life]

Sod the polar bears, just look at those rock formations. Phwoaaaar!

(Just kidding about the bears - deeply envious of sighting those.)

Have a soft spot for rocks as my major units at uni were geomorphology and advanced climatology, so I can see where you are coming from but I do love the bears and big cats!

 

[bPeteb]

Forgot to ask, what was the Occassion or was it a 'because we can' trip?

Hi bsb

We're off to South America in June/July. Air NZ to BA, Iguazu for an overnighter, BA a few days then up to Lima. 15 day Intrepid to La Paz including Inca Trail.

No special occasion. Our friend who owns the apartment on The World asked us if we would be interested and we jumped at the chance!

 

[bPeteb]

26/08/2015

Rypefjord, Scoresbysund

Long fast hike (6-8km) today.

Discovery one - my shoes were good for dry only. Super comfortable and super stable just not super waterproof. Al’s boots were perfectly waterproof. Thermals and light fleeces great. My light gortex rain jacket was brilliant, Al’s waterproof jacket not so much. One walking pole each of the pair bought was perfect. We layered well.

Hike was long, fast, and mainly up. More amazing wildlife. Musk ox spotted as soon as we came ashore. Musk ox were my headline wildlife before the polar bear appeared.

Musk ox very wary of humans because they associate us with guns. They run as soon as they see/smell us. Over the course of the afternoon we saw at least a dozen, and got as close as a couple of hundred metres. Then there were snow hares.

Afternoon's scenic cruising not so scenic. Low cloud blocked the view of the mountains on each side of Ofjord. Until… the ship came to a stop and started to turn. We looked outside and we were inching towards a ‘fissure’ in the rocks. Down on to the bow on deck 7 and the view was awesome. I think they told us that even with the bow rail nearly touching the rocks the water under the bow was hundreds of feet deep.

Lecture – Prehistory of north east Greenland – Bill Fitzugh from the Smithsonian
heading down another spectacular fjordbig ship, small spaceit's hard to get scale into the pictures. This slab of ice was at least as big as three football pitchesview from the bridge. The bridge on The World is open at all times except entering and leaving port

 

[bPeteb]

the remains of a successful hunting expeditionour first musk ox sightinglocal flora. This is as high as the vegetation got in arctic Greenlandzoomed incameras at the ready

 

[bPeteb]

the residents of The World are serious hikersmusk ox within a couple of hndred metresperforming snow hares'another' huge glacier. We never got tired of them, and we saw a lot!the walk back was always easier

 

[bPeteb]

Thursday 27 August

Northeast Greenland National Park, Scoresbysund

It takes a huge amount of perseverance get permission to visit Northeast Greenland National Park. Very few permits are approved each year. For very large expedition vessels it has never happened. Approval was only given to The World seven days before.

Wet landing, so it was wellies for both of us and they were great. Could walk in them for hours.

Medium natural history walk with Richard. Just up off the shore were ruins of a number of medieval Thule Inuit ‘winter’ homes. The original homes would have had a timber framed turf roofs over stone lines holes. A tunnel out of house was built to keep the cold out and heat in. We also found a food store - a rock 'cupboard' further up hill. Saw another snow hare and a few birds (Richard's specialty) but that was the only wildlife we saw. A bit further along the beach we found some more house ruins plus a ‘tent circle’. None of this had been documented previously so the expedition team was very excited.

Al dragged a bit of ice up to the beach and made me balance on it so that I could say that I’d also been on an iceberg, well, a bergy bit .

Headed further up the sund towards the main glacier. A couple of the bergs looked as big as small towns. They were most likely bigger.

Zodiac cruising again amongst the amazing bergs. There was even a ‘bar zodiac’ (!!) serving champagne and heated apple juice with calvados. If you are going to do an expedition surely this is the only way to do it!

Another brilliant day.
much conjecture on how this rock 'formation' was created. No consensus reached
some more hunting leftovers
I think that this was the thule foodstore but might have been part of the sod house
large snow hare foot (and no sign of the rest of the hare)
zodiac heading back to the ship

 

[bPeteb]

as you can see, the back of the ship 'folds down' to create a platform. Immediately inside the ship is the Marina restaurant and the indoor pool that can be turned into a dance floor by lowering a 'lid' onto it

 

[bPeteb]

the seal in it's personal swimming pool
the expedition videographer getting up close and personal with the seal
the icebergs towards the end of this fjord were truly immense
an attempt at giving the bergs some persepctive but even this doesn't work
champagne or warm cider with calvados anyone? One of each please

 

[bPeteb]

27/08/2015
Town visit - Ittoqqortoormiit

Pronunciation of this town has caused much merriment amongst the expedition team during the nightly expedition briefings. Laali, our Greenlander, pronounced it something like Ee-tock-a-tore-mitt with the 'tock' a strange clearing your throat kind of sound.

Tiny town of 500 very hardy people at the very beginning of Scoresbysund, right on the northern tip of land at the mouth of the sund.

If you search for images of Greenlandic towns it’ll look just like Ittoqqortoormiit – a scattered group of brightly coloured cottages sitting on a rocky coastline.

We had two safety instructions for the town – stay aware of speeding drivers on quad bikes (they call them four-wheelers) and don’t go near the sled dogs. Both good pieces of advice. The quad bikes raced around town, often with very small children propped up in boxes on the front of them.

The roads were crushed rock, the paths were crushed rock, the yards were crushed rock or not crushed rock. There is no vegetation in the town, anywhere. Just rock, and ice/snow still hanging around from winter. What a forbidding place.

The sled dogs howled all the time we were there.

They get two supply boats a year, one in August and one in October. If you want anything outside of those months the only way to get it is by helicopter drop! We were told that if we went to the supermarket don’t buy anything that we can buy on the ship. That supermarket is full of what the locals need, not stuff for tourists to buy for a laugh. Apparently when the boat came earlier in the month school was cancelled and they let off fireworks, in the daytime!

Saw a polar bear skin drying at one house and seal skins at a couple more. At the arts and crafts centre/gallery there was another polar bear skin and also a musk ox hide.

Water/sewer is in pipes above the ground, nothing can be dug under the rock. They have issues in winter with the pipes freezing so there is one place in town where water is always available out of a cistern/tank. Power is supplied by a large oil powered generator. They have internet but it is horrifically expensive.

Visited a little museum with some amazing photographs of the history of the eastern communities. Kayaks (qayaqs) originated in Greenland as did anoraks.

At the general store we bought a postcard and posted it. The store keeper had change for four different currencies – Greenlandic, Danish, Euros and US dollars. Outside they had some musk ox to sample. Apparently it is boiled for hours but despite the poor sales pitch it was delicious. Very much like beef.

As we sailed out of Scorsbysund the peaks on the southern shore of the sund were covered in the most amazing cloud as the sun shone on to them. It was spectacular.

During dinner we were treated to some whales surfacing not too far off the ship.

 

[bPeteb]

 

[bPeteb]

 

[bPeteb]

30/08/2015
Kangerdlugssuaq

Info – Kangerdlugssuaq is the largest glacier on the east coast of Greenland and drains 35% of the east Greenland icecap

Eerie arrival through the mist into the fjord. Mountain peaks appearing and disappearing. Sun occasionally shining through.

Watched the bridge cam on tv with bergs appearing out of the mist. Must have been fun for Captain Dag and ice pilot Philip. Ice and bergs very thick. Ship constantly crashing and grinding through ice.

Eventually we stopped. Surrounded by gigantic icebergs. The mist slowly lifted and big mountain peaks and glaciers were all around us. Went up to deck 12 then down and out on to the bow. Ethereal and magic are the only words to describe it. The pictures only show some of this magic.

Today's lecture – Alone in Greenland by Graham. Talk about a risk taker. Wow! Zodiac cruising today was on a whole new level. Lots of cool blue icebergs and bergy bits plus a giant ice arch. Mist and low cloud all around us just added to the magical quality of this place.

Landed on shore where the hotel team had been busy setting up a bbq (fillet steak, wagyu burgers), marshmallows over an open fire, hot chocolate with Baileys, Icelandic beers and the residents’ band playing. Surreal.

Polar swim cancelled due to need to get out of fjord before mist closed back in. The ice looked like it was as much of a danger.

Dinner in Regatta, musk ox with blueberries 'shepherd’s pie’. Incredibly delicious.

 

[bPeteb]

 

[bPeteb]

 

[bPeteb]

31/08/2015
Tasiilaq and Ammassalik Island

Lecture – Vikings by Bill.

Town name translates to 'like a lake' as it is situated in fjord that looks land-locked.

Much bigger town – 1500 people – and classed as the ‘capital of East Greenland’.

The large Royal Arctic supply ship was in town. Small harbour behind the ship filled with small fishing boats.

Andrew the geologist was sitting by the jetty when we got off the zodiac. I asked him if he was ok and he said he thought he might have appendicitis. He was right. It got taken out the following afternoon at the town hospital.

Town has same colour scheme as Ittoggortoormiit but dominated by apartment buildings and not individual houses. Saw another house with a polar bear skin drying on a rack outside their front door.

Visited the small museum with narwhal and a walrus skulls on display. Both bizarre. The narwhal skull was of a very rare beast where its right tooth (they have two upper teeth) had punched out through its skull to form a second ‘tusk’. Usually only the left tooth ‘grows’.

The town put on a dog sled feeding. Got a bit lost but it allowed us to see the real, and very sad, Tasiilaq. It must have been the equivalent of social security day. Crowds of very drunk people hanging around outside the supermarket. Most quite good humoured. Tasiilaq very obviously suffers from welfare dependency and disaffected/bored youth. We’d seen some evidence of alcohol abuse in Ittoggortoormiit but it was far more obvious here. The town was pretty filthy as well. I understand that people have different priorities but compared to Ittoggortoormiit this place was one giant garbage dump.

What an eye opener the dog feeding was. There was a small dead seal and the spine of a much larger seal on the ground with a dog and some pups. Eventually the small seal was skinned and carved up and then thrown to the other dogs around the ‘yard’. The howls they made were like nothing on earth. Lots of people left but we stayed to the end.

A local cultural group came on board and put on a show in The Plaza. It was interesting. A choir performed a few songs that all sounded pretty much the same and then we witnessed the famed drum dance that didn’t involve much dancing or that much drumming either.

 

[bPeteb]

 

[bPeteb]

01/09/2015
Skoldungen Fjord

Early lecture – The impact of WW11 on Greenland - Jes

Queen Mary Bay

Island in middle of double fjord

Long walk – I decided to try it in my wellies again as I couldn't be bothered to change from them to boots. They were great again.

Gazzillions of midges/flies. Should have brought our head/hat nets. Lucky we’d brought 'tropical’ (haha!!) strength Off and it worked a treat.

It was the best walk. Al is still raving about it and rates it as his best day.

Spongy ground meant it was easy on our joints. Lichens and mosses of lots of colours. Filled our water bottles with glacial melt water.

Graham's aim had been to get as close as possible to glacier face but we were at least an hour away when we turned back. We had time to walk up to the top of a ridge behind the landing beach to look down into the neighbouring bay and glacier. A member of the expedition team, armed with a rifle, went with us as we were still in polar bear country.

Ran into Kevin the expedition videographer on the top of the ridge searching for his drone. He’d got a low battery warning when it was out over the fjord so he turned it for shore and lost sight of it. Despite lots of people looking we didn’t find it. Kevin was sad he’d lost great footage but the loss of the drone didn’t worry him at all. "It’s just a thing".

 

[bPeteb]

 

[love_the_life]

View attachment 61623as you can see, the back of the ship 'folds down' to create a platform. Immediately inside the ship is the Marina restaurant and the indoor pool that can be turned into a dance floor by lowering a 'lid' onto it
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Not sure about anyone else but the attached pictures don't work for me at all. Any chance of a repost?