EYOS · The Northwest Passage · M/Y BOLD · Ilulissat to Dutch Harbour

01Embark

Sun 15 to Mon 16 Aug

Ilulissat

Ilulissat & Disko Bay

Embark · Icefjord · Helicopter Flights

Board in Ilulissat, the town whose name means icebergs. It sits beside the fjord fed by Sermeq Kujalleq, the most productive glacier in the northern hemisphere, which fills it with some of the largest icebergs found outside Antarctica and carries them down thirty miles to Disko Bay at a rate of about twenty million tons a day. The icefjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Two days here: the town and its harbour, the board walk to the fjord mouth, helicopter flights over the ice, and time among the bergs of Disko Bay as the embarkation settles.

03Greenland

Tue 17 Aug

Disko Bay North

Glacier Hike · Icecap Flight

The northern reaches of Disko Bay hold tidewater glacier fronts, an old settlement site, and ground firm enough to walk. Go ashore for the glacier hike in the morning. In the afternoon the helicopter runs up onto the Greenland icecap itself, a surface of ice that covers four fifths of the island, for a landing on a scale nothing at sea level prepares you for.

04Greenland

Wed 18 Aug

Uummannaq

Uummannaq Fjord

Heart-Shaped Mountain · Town Visit

Uummannaq sits under the heart shaped mountain that gives the town its name, on an island in a fjord system that runs deep into the coast north of Disko Bay. It is a town with a strong dog sledding culture, kept through the winter on the sea ice of the fjord. Walk the town, visit the museum in the old mission buildings, and sail in the evening among icebergs calved from the fjord's glaciers.

05Greenland

Thu 19 Aug

Upernavik

Northernmost Calls · Last Bunkers

Upernavik is one of the most northerly communities on the Greenland coast, a scatter of painted houses on a small rocky island. It is the last port of the Greenland side and the last bunkering stop before the Passage, so the call does double duty: a morning in the town, and the yacht topped up for the Canadian Arctic, where the next fuel is a long way ahead.

06The Crossing

Fri 20 to Sat 21 Aug

Sam Ford Fjord

Baffin Bay to Sam Ford Fjord

300nm Crossing · Canada Clearance · Helicopter Joins

The crossing of Baffin Bay is roughly three hundred nautical miles of open water, the line that separates Greenland from the true wilderness of the Canadian Archipelago. Land on the far side is Baffin Island's east coast, and the yacht clears into Canada remotely and runs into Sam Ford Fjord, where granite walls rise sheer from the sea in one of the most spectacular fjord systems in the Arctic. The helicopter is flown on to the yacht here, and stays aboard for the rest of the Passage: from this point the walls, the glaciers behind them and the high summits are all reachable.

08Baffin

Sun 22 Aug

Scott Inlet

Granite Walls · Flightseeing

Scott Inlet is the next fjord system north, the same architecture of sheer rock out of deep water. Work it by tender under the walls, and from the air, where the scale of the coast finally reads: walls of well over a thousand metres, glaciers hanging between them, and no settlement in any direction. This is the country the helicopter was brought for, and the first full day of high landings on summits no yacht guest reaches any other way.

09Baffin

Mon 23 Aug

Buchan Gulf

Glacier Corridor · Bears · Narwhal

Buchan Gulf, named for the Scottish naval officer David Buchan, who led an 1818 Arctic expedition, cuts deep into northern Baffin Island through a corridor of glacially sculpted mountains. These coasts are prime summer polar bear habitat, so all eyes work the shoreline on the approach. Narwhal are known to frequent the sheltered waters of the gulf, the long spiral tusk of the males occasionally visible when they surface to breathe.

10Community

Tue 24 Aug

Pond Inlet

Mittimatalik · Bylot Island · Sirmilik

Pond Inlet, Mittimatalik to the Inuit, is a community of around 1,400 people at the northern tip of Baffin Island, one of the largest of the four Canadian hamlets above the 72nd parallel. Residents still fish Arctic char and hunt on the ice, and dog teams are still a common sight among the snowmobiles. The setting is one of Nunavut's finest: the iceberg strewn channel in front of the town runs across to the mountains, glaciers and bird cliffs of Bylot Island and Sirmilik National Park.

11Wildlife

Wed 25 Aug

Philpotts Island

Walrus · Glaciers · Tender Cruises

Philpotts Island sits off the east coast of Devon Island, and its walrus haul outs are the reason to come: heavy bodies stacked on the gravel, bulls coming and going from the water, the whole colony rearranging itself constantly. Glaciers meet the sea on the neighbouring coast. The day runs by tender along the haul outs at the distance the guides set, by helicopter over the ice behind them, and on foot where the ground allows.

12Devon

Thu 26 Aug

Dundas & Croker

Dundas Harbour & Croker Bay

RCMP Post · Twin Glaciers · Walrus

Two calls on the south coast of Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island in the world. Dundas Harbour holds the buildings of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police outpost established in 1924 to assert a Canadian presence in the Arctic, abandoned now, with archaeological sites nearby and unusually lush tundra for the hiking. Croker Bay, next door, is a twenty five mile fjord that ends in two massive tidewater glaciers, with ice drifting in the bay late into the summer and a walrus haul out worked from the tenders.

13Devon

Fri 27 Aug

Powell Inlet

Powell & Burnett Inlets

Deep Fjords · Hiking · Wildlife

Further west along Devon's south coast, Powell Inlet and Burnett Inlet are two of the deep fjords that indent the island, good places to find wildlife, with long tender runs under terraced mountains and hiking on the benches above. Devon was first sighted by Robert Bylot and William Baffin in 1616 and has never held a permanent population; ashore, the silence is the point.

14Community

Sat 28 Aug

Arctic Bay

Cultural Visit · Guest Exchange · Provisions

Arctic Bay is a Netsilik Inuit community on a sheltered bay of northern Baffin Island, and the practical hinge of the itinerary: guests can join or leave here by air, and provisions come aboard. The day itself is a cultural visit, time in the community and a tasting of Inuit country food, before the yacht turns west into Lancaster Sound and the Passage proper.

15Lancaster Sound

Sun 29 Aug

Maxwell Bay

Devon's South Coast · Landing

Maxwell Bay is another of the deep indents in Devon Island's south coast, and a name from the history of the Passage. The day is kept flexible: a landing and a walk if the timings allow, and otherwise the coast from the water, with Lancaster Sound's wildlife around the yacht. The sound is the eastern gateway of the Northwest Passage, its waters rich enough in Arctic cod to feed narwhal, beluga, bowhead whales, seals and the seabird colonies of the coast.

16History

Mon 30 Aug

Beechey Island

Beechey Island & Radstock Bay

Franklin's Winter · The Graves · Caswell Tower

Beechey Island is the most notable historic site in the exploration of the Northwest Passage. Sir John Franklin's ships Erebus and Terror wintered here in 1845 and 46 before sailing south to their fate; three of his crew are buried on the beach, and the island later became the base and meeting place for the searches that followed. Amundsen stopped here in 1903, paying respect, on the first successful transit. Radstock Bay next door is dominated by Caswell Tower, with Thule sites at its base and prime polar bear denning country behind it. Beluga work this coast, the hiking is real, and the helicopter puts the plateau summits in reach.

17Wildlife

Tue 31 Aug

Creswell Bay

Beluga · Char Fishing · Somerset Island

Creswell Bay cuts into Somerset Island, whose coastal waters hold some of the largest beluga aggregations in the Canadian Arctic. The day is built around them, from the tenders and from the air, with hiking on the tundra behind the bay and Arctic char fishing in the rivers that empty into it.

18The Narrows

Wed 01 Sep

Bellot Strait

Zenith Point · 8 Knot Tides · Fort Ross

Bellot Strait separates Somerset Island from the Boothia Peninsula: eighteen miles long, under half a mile wide in its fjord like central section, with tidal streams that run to eight knots and demand a slack water transit. Halfway through it passes Zenith Point, the northernmost point of mainland North America. At the eastern entrance sits Fort Ross, the last trading post the Hudson's Bay Company ever established, in 1937; its two buildings still stand and the day starts with a landing there before the yacht takes the narrows.

19Wildlife

Thu 02 Sep

Coningham Bay

Beluga · Bears · Prince of Wales Island

Coningham Bay, on Prince of Wales Island in Peel Sound, is one of the Passage's reliable wildlife anchorages: beluga gather in the shallows of the bay, and the polar bears of the region know it. Tender cruises along the bar, hiking on the island behind, and the high tundra of Prince of Wales beyond it, an ecosystem of gyrfalcons, Arctic wolves and muskoxen that feels prehistoric.

20Ice Navigation

Fri 03 Sep

Victoria Strait

Victoria Strait & Gjoa Haven

Erebus & Terror · Ice Navigation

Victoria Strait is where the Franklin expedition's Erebus and Terror were finally beset in 1846 and never freed, and it is still the ice crux of the southern route: the day is one of genuine ice navigation, conned from the bridge with the ice navigator, at the pace the pack allows. Gjoa Haven on King William Island, the harbour where Amundsen spent two winters during the first transit and which carries his ship's name, is the landing if progress allows an afternoon ashore.

21Amundsen's Route

Sat 04 Sep

Queen Maud Gulf

Icebreaker Channel · Taylor Island

Queen Maud Gulf was named by Amundsen for the Norwegian queen in 1905, as the Gjøa worked west along this coast. The likely route threads the islands and pack of Icebreaker Channel, and there are several potential landing sites for a walk ashore, Taylor Island among them. Low tundra, shallow water, big sky: the Passage's middle registers are quieter than its walls, and the wildlife is on the water and the floes.

22Victoria Island

Sun 05 Sep

Cambridge Bay

Iqaluktuuttiaq · Resupply

Cambridge Bay, on the southern coast of Victoria Island, is Iqaluktuuttiaq in Inuinnaqtun: a good place with lots of fish. People have lived here for at least four thousand years; the Hudson's Bay Company and the RCMP established posts in the 1920s, a Distant Early Warning site followed in 1955, and the community has grown to about 1,500 people. It is the mid point of the Northwest Passage and its main western resupply stop, and guests can join or leave here by air.

23Coronation Gulf

Mon 06 Sep

Port Epworth

Tundra to Every Horizon · Char Rivers

West of Victoria Island the yacht enters the broad, shallow waters of the Coronation Gulf, the least travelled reach of the Canadian Arctic. Port Epworth is a mainland anchorage of extraordinary remoteness, the tundra plateau running uninterrupted to every horizon, and the rivers emptying into the gulf alive with Arctic char running to their spawning grounds in the last weeks of the season.

24Wildlife

Tue 07 Sep

Bernard Harbour

Muskoxen · Caribou · The Mainland Coast

Bernard Harbour sits on the mainland coast where supply ships call perhaps twice a year. Muskoxen graze the upland plateau above the anchorage in small herds, their coats already thickening for the winter, and caribou may be seen crossing the coastal lowlands in groups. A full day ashore and aloft in country that has changed very little since the shore parties of the exploration era mapped it.

25Geology

Wed 08 Sep

The Smoking Hills

Franklin Bay & the Smoking Hills

Burning Shales · Cape Bathurst

Franklin Bay holds one of the most geologically extraordinary features of the entire voyage: the Smoking Hills of Cape Bathurst, where coal and oil shales exposed by coastal erosion have been smouldering continuously for centuries, streaking the cliffs in burnt reds and sulphur yellows and sending smoke off the slopes into the sea wind. Seen from the water and, on this charter, from the air.

26Yukon

Thu 09 Sep

Herschel Island

Qikiqtaruk · Whaling Station · Helicopter Departs

Herschel Island, Qikiqtaruk, lies off the Yukon coast, and Pauline Cove is the westernmost of the Passage's historic anchorages: the wintering harbour of the 1890s bowhead fleet, kept now as a territorial park, where the whalers' graves still stand in the tundra above the cove. Access is confirmed nearer the time. This is the helicopter's last working day, and it flies off from here as the yacht turns for Alaska with the machine's work done: the high country of the Passage is behind.

27Sea Passage

Fri 10 to Sat 11 Sep

Beaufort Sea

The Beaufort Sea

Two Days · Ice Dependent

Two days at sea westward across the Beaufort, skirting between the Alaskan coast and the pack ice that extends north toward the pole. The routing is ice dependent and decided daily from the bridge. Sea watches from the wintergarden: this is bowhead and beluga water, and the light in mid September starts giving back real darkness for the first time since Greenland, with the aurora overhead when the sky clears.

29Alaska

Sun 12 Sep

Point Barrow

The Top of Alaska · Passing

Point Barrow is the northern tip of Alaska, and rounding it is the turn of the whole voyage: the coast falls away south for the first time since the Atlantic. The yacht passes offshore without stopping, out of the Beaufort and into the Chukchi Sea.

30The Gate

Mon 13 to Tue 14 Sep

Bering Strait

Chukchi Sea & the Bering Strait

Diomede Islands · Into the Pacific

Two days south through the Chukchi Sea to the gate itself. The Diomede Islands stand mid strait, Russia's Big Diomede and Alaska's Little Diomede two miles apart with the date line between them, and passing them marks entry into the Pacific Ocean and the completion of a legendary voyage across the top of the world. The Northwest Passage ends here; the miles that remain are the Pacific's.

32Option

Wed 15 Sep

Nome

Possible Departure · Or Continue

Nome sits on the Bering coast of the Seward Peninsula, a gold rush town with a jet capable runway and the first practical departure point beyond the strait. Guests who need the earlier date can disembark here and connect through Anchorage. Otherwise the yacht takes on what she needs and continues south for Dutch Harbour, two days ahead.

33Sea Passage

Thu 16 Sep

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea

South Toward the Aleutians

A final day at sea, south across the Bering Sea shelf toward the Aleutian chain. The water here is among the most productive on earth, fished by fulmars, shearwaters and albatrosses that follow the yacht for hours, and the last sea day gives the expedition team room for the voyage's summary: what was seen, what was logged, and what almost nobody else has done.

34Disembark

Fri 17 Sep

Dutch Harbour

Unalaska · End of Expedition

Come alongside at Dutch Harbour on Unalaska Island in the morning, green volcanic hills over a working fishing port, bald eagles on the light poles. The ice pilot disembarks and the expedition ends here, 34 days and roughly five thousand nautical miles from Ilulissat, with the Atlantic behind, the Pacific ahead, and the Northwest Passage in the wake.