I'm on my way to northern Baffin Island, specifically Pond Inlet, a small community in northern Nunavut where sightings of narwhal and polar bear are commonplace. I'll be camping out on the sea ice for 5 nights during my Arctic adventure in comfortable safari tents and 24 hours of daylight. Our camp is located 45 miles from Pond Inlet near the …

Today we are traveling across the frozen ocean on komatiks, wooden sledges pulled by snowmobiles, to our Arctic base camp. The ride is bumpy, like traveling in a zodiac across choppy waves. We cross a couple of natural cracks in the ice, 1-4 foot gaps where the frozen ice has split apart to reveal the ocean water beneath. The first crack is a bit …

We're sitting at the floe edge hoping to catch a glimpse of the pods of narwhal that generally travel along the edge in the upcoming weeks. We're here a bit early in the season so even though we hear reports of narwhal sightings frequently, we haven't seen any whales yet. While we wait, we see flocks of Eider Ducks, Kittiwakes, and Murres. A seal …

Today we're at the bird cliffs where hundreds of Murres and Kittiwakes nest in the clifftops. The ice we are standing on will be open ocean in another couple of months. For now, ~ a half mile of frozen sea separates the cliffs from the open ocean and there is a constant cacophony of squawking overhead as the birds travel between their nests and …

Thanks to the last minute adjustments that had to be made to our itinerary to accommodate ice conditions, we end up with a free morning to head inland to the Greenland ice cap before boarding the plane home. This is the second largest ice sheet in the world and covers over 80% of the Greenland surface. More than 99% of the freshwater ice in the …