After flying north from Ottawa, we join our comfortable and powerful polar-class icebreaker, Kapitan Khlebnikov in tiny Resolute, the Canadian Arctic’s second most northerly town (after Ellesmere Island’s Grise Ford). For the next couple of weeks we’ll wend the archipelago of islands and straits that the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845 sought to link into a practical Northwest Passage. The tragic demise of all of Franklin’s 134 men, and the many expeditions sent to solve the mystery, which became a world-wide sensation, is one of the Arctic’s great stories of heroism and, alas, ill-preparedness (as our on-board lecturers will explain as we visit historic islands and waterways connected with the Franklin Expedition).

Thanks to the Khlebnikov’s two on-board helicopters, we’re able to soar overhead (conditions permitting, of course) as the ship makes its way through ice-choked (and wildlife rich) straits like fabled Hecla and Fury, a long, crucial linkage between the Gulf of Boothia and the Foxe Basin. We’ll make landings on a number of islands for a deeper appreciation of the arctic’s dramatic history, but most of all to savor the high arctic’s subtle and theatric beauties.

Day 1: fly to Ottawa • Day 2: fly to Resolute, board Kapitan Khlebnikov • Days 3 & 4: sail to Beechey Island • Day 5: Somerset Island, helicopter jaunts • Day 6: Peel Sound • Day 7: Bellot Strait and Fort Ross, passing Zenith Point, North America’s northernmost point • Day 8: Gulf of Boothia • Day 9: through Fury and Hecla Strait • Days 10 & 11: Foxe Basin • Day 12: Cape Dorset • Day 13: Inuit village of Kimmirut • Day 14: very rare visit to Lady Franklin Island • Days 15 & 16: Iqaluit and on to Ottawa.

• General Description
• Reading List
• Weather Information

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