Highlights:

• Experience the “Serengeti” of North America during our visit to Bathurst Inlet
• Visit the largest uninhabited island on earth during our stop at Devon Island
• Cross the Arctic circle while sailing in the shadow of the second-longest fjord in Greenland
• Visit the westernmost community in Nunavut at Kugluktuk
• Visit the historic graves of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition
• Enjoy the town of Pond Inlet, with breathtaking peaks of Bylot Island and the hospitality of the townspeople

The quest for the Northwest Passage has occupied the minds of Western civilization for half a millennium. The English called the hypothetical route the Northwest Passage, while the Spanish called it the Strait of Anián. The desire to establish such a route motivated much of the European exploration of both coasts of North America.

This is the most coveted of Arctic itineraries. Beginning in Kangerlussauq, Greenland, we venture through Baffin, Devon, King William and Victoria Islands.

Throughout the Canadian Arctic waterways, history manifests itself as we pass straits, islands and peninsulas bearing the names of the men who charted this forbidden coastline. Names such as Franklin, M’Clintock Channel, Gjoa Haven and Kent Peninsula conjure up century-old tales of tragedy, hardship, determination, extraordinary feats of the human mind and body, and the explorers who made them.

Join us and trace the infamous passage that engulfed the imagination of millions and occupied navies for centuries. Be a part of nautical history and Canada's.

* Please note that this is an expeditionary itinerary. While we will make every attempt to keep to the published itinerary, weather, wildlife sightings and other factors may change the timings and or destinations listed below.

Resource Experts on the Northwest Passage Expedition Tour in Canada

Jack Seigel

After 30 years as a professor of environmental studies, Jack remains committed to conservatio and education. He has consulted on ecotourism development and taught guide training internationally. With an extensive knowledge of plants and animals, and their ecological relationships, Jack introduces “the big picture” in a relaxed and entertaining style. Since 1978 he has travelled throughout the Arctic,first joining the  team in 1994.

When not guiding nature tours throughout the world, he and his wife divide the year between their energy efficient ‘straw bale’ home in central Ontario and the mountains of Panama.

Kenneth Lister

Kenneth Lister is a curator of anthropology at the Royal Ontario Museum and 2010 will be his third trip with us. His areas of research include archaeological fieldwork in northern Ontario and ethnographic research among the northern Ontario Cree and the Inuit of Baffin Island. Since 2006 he has been travelling along the fur trade canoe route of northern Ontario searching for landscape sites sketched by Canadian artist, Paul Kane (1810-1871).

Based upon his Arctic research, Kenneth curated the exhibit In the Time of the Kayak: Hunting in the Eastern Canadian Arctic (1994-1996). This exhibit was the inaugural exhibition of the ROM’s Gallery of Indigenous Peoples. He curated the exhibition Tuugaaq: Ivory Sculptures from the Eastern Canadian Arctic (2002-2003) and this work is now featured in the Virtual Museum Website, Tuugaaq | Ivory | Ivoire.

Richard Knapton

Richard Knapton has been an avid birder since his teen years in England, and has graduate degrees in bird research from UBC on Song Sparrows and the University of Manitoba on Clay-colored Sparrows. He has led tours for 20 years to over 20 countries, and now has a chance to continue that passion as co-owner of Eagle Eye Tours! He is currently a member of the Alberta Bird Records Committee, and of the COSEWIC Special Studies Group for threatened and endangered birds in Canada. He has been involved in several conservation issues, including the Henslow’s Sparrow Recovery Plan. He teaches biology and ornithology courses at the University of Alberta, and has researched and published papers on a diversity of subjects: Bicknell’s Thrushes to zebra mussels.

Andrew Qappik

Andrew Qappik is a master printmaker from Pangnirtung, Baffin Island in Nunavut. Originally inspired by images in the comic books he read as a child, Andrew now finds his subjects in the stories, traditions and day-to-day events of his world. His images describe the local landscape, the animals, the people as well as family activities and camp life. As a printmaker, Andrew uses relief printing, etching and lithography. He is most widely recognized for the subtle layering of colours in his stencil prints. As a designer, Andrew uses symbolic colours and imagery to communicate ideas. He is best known for his design of the Nunavut flag, logo and coat of arms. He conducts workshops for people of all ages and often travels to the south to demonstrate and promote Inuit printmaking.

Danny Catt

Danny is a writer, photographer and educator with over 10 years of experience with Parks Canada in the fields of environmental education and park planning. Danny has travelled the world, and leads a number of Adventure Canada’s natural history and photography trips. When not seeking adventures in exotic places, Danny is a faculty member in the Fish, Wildlife and Recreation program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, near Vancouver.

Marc St-Onge

Dr. Marc St-Onge is an internationally distinguished researcher and lecturer who studies how the core of the North American continent evolved and was assembled more than 2 billion years ago. He is a Senior Research Scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University (UK), and Adjunct Professor at Queen’s University. Marc has led seven multi-year integrated field research projects in the Canadian Arctic and has participated in a number of expeditions to the western and central Himalaya, eastern Tibet, and western Greenland. Marc is co-leader of the international compilation project led by Canada that will result in the release of the new international Geological map of the Arctic and its underlying GIS-enabled database in 2010.

Bernadette Miqqusaaq Dean

Bernadette grew up in Coral Harbour on Southampton Island. Bernadette currently works for the Kivalliq Inuit Association as Social Development Coordinator, works extensively with Inuit elders and youth on various community development and cultural programs designed to enhance the lives of all Inuit. She is interested in Inuit oral history and has produced traditional Inuit songs for promotion and preservation of Inuktitut. Bernie is a mother of three beautiful children, two daughters and a son. Her son is currently outside of Toronto at Russell Hockey conditioning camp the next Tootoo!

Aaju Peter

Born in Arkisserniaq, a northern Greenland community, in 1960 Aaju haslived up and down the west coast of her native country as a result of her father’s teaching and preaching career. In 1981, Aaju moved to Iqaluit, in Nunavut, Canada where she has taken up residence. Here, Aaju worked as an interpreter, and she has done volunteer work with various women’s and interpretation organizations.

Currently Aaju has a homebased sealskin garment business, translates, volunteers for the music society, collects traditional law from elders for the Department of Justice, raises her five children and just recently graduated from Akitsiraq Law School - all in a day’s work!

Ken McGoogan

Ken McGoogan is the author of an Arctic Discovery Quartet of biographical narratives: Fatal Passage, Ancient Mariner, Lady Franklin’s   Revenge, and Race to the Polar Sea. Hailed as “one of the finest contemporary Canadian writers of Arctic exploration history,” Ken has won the Writers’ Trust of Canada Biography Prize, the Canadian Authors’ Association History Award, the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography, and the Pierre Berton Award for History. He has chased the ghost of Lady Franklin around Tasmania, lugged a memorial plaque honoring John Rae into the High Arctic, and made a cameo appearance in the BBC docudrama based on his book Fatal Passage. Ken is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, serves as vice-chairman of the Public Lending Right Commission, and sails in the Northwest Passage as a resource historian.

Price:

• Category 1 $7195.00
• Category 2 $8795.00
• Category 3 $9895.00
• Category 4 $10,745.00
• Category 5 $12,595.00
• Category 6 $13,595.00
• Category 7 $14,595.00
• Category 8 $15,195.00
• Category 9 $15,995.00
• Category 10 $16,595.00

Category Amenities:

1. Quad Lower Forward, 2 upper 2 lower berths, porthole window.
2. Triple Lower Deck, 1 upper 2 lower berths, porthole window.
3. Junior Double, two lower berths, porthole window
4. Double, two lower berths, midship, porthole window.
5. Main Double, two lower berths, porthole window.
6. Deluxe Double, two lower berths, midship, porthole window.
7. Superior Double, two lower berths, picture window.
8. Junior Suite, two lower berths, sitting area, picture window.
9. Suite, two lower berths, sitting area, picture window.
10. Owner’s Suite, two lower berths, shower & bathtub, picture window.

What is included:

• All entry & park fees
• Your complete itinerary
• Team of resource specialists
• Educational program and pre-departure materials
• All shipboard meals
• All Zodiac excursions
• Service charges and port fees

What is not included:

• Commercial & charter flights
• Mandatory medical / evacuation insurance
• Personal expenses
• Additional expenses in the event of delays or
• itinerary changes
• Discretionary gratuities to ship’s crew (approximately $10 - 14 per passenger per day)
• Visas, or inoculations, if required
• Physician’s fees confirming you are fit to travel
• Possible fuel surcharges

Join our Northwest Passage Expedition Tour in Canada!