High Arctic Expedition: Where Art Meets Land

Arrive in Kangerlussuaq by charter flight. The community’s Kalaallisut name means “big fjord.” It developed around an American airbase established during the Second World War, with its inland location chosen for more stable flying conditions. Transfer by Zodiac to your expedition vessel and begin sailing through the fjord toward the sea.

Kangerlussuaq Fjord extends westward through a landscape shaped by glaciers and meltwater. Rounded mountains rise above wide glacial valleys, while sediment from melting ice gives the shallow waters a milky turquoise color. As the fjord opens toward Davis Strait, cross the Arctic Circle and leave Greenland’s interior behind. The passage from the fjord to open water marks the beginning of the voyage north.

Cruise along the Sisimiut coast, where mountains rise from the sea and small settlements are located along the shoreline. The region reflects Greenland’s seafaring traditions, with local communities maintaining close ties to the land and surrounding waters. As you sail, observe the coastal mountains and changing views of the shoreline.

Ilulissat means “icebergs,” a fitting name for a city beside one of the world’s great moving ice systems. At the head of the UNESCO-listed Ilulissat Icefjord, Sermeq Kujalleq ranks among the fastest and most active glaciers on Earth. Its immense icebergs travel slowly through the fjord before entering Disko Bay, continually transforming the seascape.

The icefjord has shaped human life here for more than four thousand years. That relationship continues in contemporary Ilulissat, a lively Greenlandic city where fishing boats crowd the harbor and the streets bustle with residents and travellers. Restaurants showcase Greenlandic ingredients, while cafés, shops, and the striking Ilulissat Icefjord Center reflect the city’s growing cultural and creative energy.

Here, deep human history, vibrant city life, and constant environmental change come together at the edge of the ice.

Sail among towering glaciers and drifting bergs, each one a shifting sculpture in white and blue. Fjords echo with the sound of calving ice, and mountains rise sheer above waters crowded with floes. Immense, elemental, and constantly changing, this landscape invites you to consider how something so vast and dynamic can ever be captured in paint, photography, or words.

Greenland’s coast breaks apart here into a vast maze of islands, narrow channels, and drifting ice. Upernavik, meaning “the springtime place,” rises from this intricate seascape in a bright sweep of colorful houses and a working harbor.

Fishing and hunting remain central to life across the archipelago, connecting Upernavik with the smaller communities scattered along the coast. Its historic quarter forms the world’s northernmost open-air museum, preserving the church, trading buildings, boats, and tools of an earlier era. Surrounded by rock, sea, and ice, Upernavik reveals the remarkable character of life along Greenland’s northern coast.

Continue north through Melville Bay, following Greenland’s coast toward Smith Sound. Icebergs drift through these waters in an ever-changing procession, while distant mountains, seabirds, and the possibility of marine wildlife keep attention fixed beyond the decks.

A day aboard creates time to look more closely at the region unfolding around you. Presentations, workshops, and informal conversations with educators explore the wildlife, geography, history, and living cultures of the High Arctic. Between sessions, the decks and observation spaces invite shared discoveries as the journey presses steadily north.

Venture through Smith Sound, the dramatic channel connecting Baffin Bay with Kane Basin and part of the greater Pikialasorsuaq region. Pikialasorsuaq means “great upwelling” in Kalaallisut and is known in Nunavut as Sarvarjuaq.

Recurring open water within the surrounding sea ice makes this the Arctic’s largest polynya and one of the most biologically productive regions north of the Arctic Circle. Nutrient-rich waters sustain an extraordinary abundance of life, drawing whales, seals, and millions of seabirds to this vital Arctic ecosystem.

Sail into Kane Basin, where Ellesmere Island and Greenland nearly meet. Glaciers tower above drifting sea ice, and the shifting Arctic light continually transforms the passage. Long travelled by Inuit, these waters later became a route for expeditions seeking both the lost Franklin expedition and a way to the North Pole. The basin bears the name of American explorer Elisha Kent Kane, who crossed it in 1854 during his search for Franklin.

Explore the rugged coastline of Ellesmere, Canada’s northernmost island. Towering mountains, vast ice caps, and deep fjords define a landscape of extraordinary scale. Here, the High Arctic exceeds the images that first inspired you, revealing a world more intricate, dynamic, and alive than any single representation can capture.

Set between the mountains of southern Ellesmere Island and the waters of Jones Sound, Ausuittuq (Grise Fiord) is Canada’s northernmost civilian community. Its Inuktitut name means “the place that never thaws,” a reference to the enduring ice above the community.

Ausuittuq was established through the High Arctic Relocations of 1953 and 1955, when the Canadian government moved Inuit families from Inukjuak and Mittimatalik, in part to reinforce Canadian sovereignty. The hardship and injustice of that history remain part of the community’s story, commemorated by a monument overlooking the shore. Today, family, language, harvesting, and community life give this small and remarkable Inuit hamlet its enduring character.

Sail through Tallurutiup Imanga, one of Canada’s largest marine protected areas, alive with whales, seals, and seabirds. Beneath towering cliffs and drifting ice, the sea glimmers with shifting light. Step ashore on Devon Island, the world’s largest uninhabited island, where glaciers meet the sea and tundra unfolds in broad, glacial valleys. Here, light and silence create their own compositions, inviting stillness, reflection, and a deep sense of the Arctic’s living beauty.

Beechey Island holds one of the most tangible chapters in the Franklin mystery. HMS Erebus and HMS Terror spent the winter of 1845–46 here before sailing south and disappearing. The graves of three crew members, remains of the winter camp, stone cairns, and traces left by later search expeditions still mark its narrow, windswept shore.

Protected as part of Beechey Island Sites National Historic Site, these remains capture the expedition at the threshold of mystery. The island later became a base for the vast search effort that helped map much of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Inuit testimony proved essential to tracing the expedition’s final movements and, generations later, locating its lost ships. Beechey Island connects Franklin’s failed voyage with its wider legacy, including expanded geographical knowledge, growing colonial ambitions, and an increasingly sustained southern presence in Inuit homelands.

Set among the gravel plains and raised beaches of Cornwallis Island, Qausuittuq occupies a strategic place within the waterways of the Canadian High Arctic. Its Inuktitut name means “place with no dawn,” a reference to the long polar night, while the summer season brings light that lingers around the clock.

The modern community began with the Canadian government’s High Arctic Relocation of 1953. The Qausuitturmiut who call it home have built a distinct community that now serves as an important center for northern research, transportation, and expedition travel.

Disembark in Qausuittuq and transfer to the airport for the charter flight to Ottawa. Here, at a historic crossroads of Inuit travel, Arctic exploration, and contemporary northern life, the sea journey ends and the route turns south.