Icebreaker
As the pack ice of the Northwest Passage shrinks, these once un-navigable waters can now be sailed. But as the Silent Sound and her crew discover, steering a route through huge chunks of ice is a dangerous mission.
By Cameron Dueck
The ice wasn’t giving us many choices. Some floes were the size of a basketball court, while others were just small chunks melting in the sunshine. It hemmed Silent Sound in against the shore, leaving a narrow gap for us to sail through. On one side, we had ice floes that could crush our hull, while on the other side lay Victoria Island, that giant mass in the middle of Canada’s Arctic, where uncharted reefs and sandbars threatened us.
To the south of us two yachts were caught in the ice. They had chosen the traditionally safe route along the southern shores of the Northwest Passage, while we gambled and went north, trying to find a way around a giant plug of ice that had blocked our way for more than a week.
I had set off on my 40-foot sloop to sail 8000 nautical miles, or 15,000 kilometres, through the Northwest Passage. Our journey took us up the west coast of Canada, through the Arctic and down the east coast to Halifax. This feat was only possible because climate change was melting the sea ice that traditionally blocks this passage. Fewer people have sailed a yacht through these waters than have climbed Mt Everest. Along the way, we wanted to learn as much as we could about modern Inuit life and see how climate change was impacting this remote corner of the earth.
The first week of the expedition was idyllic as we sailed north between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, sunny, with snow capped mountains, lush forests and quiet anchorages at night. It was hard to imagine that this was the beginning of an Arctic expedition. Then I steered Silent Sound west, across the Gulf of Alaska and into open seas.
Crossing the Gulf of Alaska took two weeks in unfavourable winds.
But the crew was settling into life at sea. Hanns, a professional sailor from Germany, relished rough seas and beating into heavy winds. He said little and did a lot, keeping Silent Sound trimmed and sailing her best. Tobias, a German medical doctor and amateur photographer, had also joined the expedition without sailing experience. But after a few days he had earned his sea legs and was taking the helm.
Each day we crept into higher latitudes, and finally crossed the Arctic Circle. Now the true adventure could begin. But very soon we had more adventure than we wanted. When we set sail, the Arctic waters were still locked away beneath the ice, but by the time we had tacked our way through the Bering Strait and rounded the top of Alaska the ice was breaking up. Only remnants of the sea ice remained, but it was still enough to block our way.
To read the rest of this article, see issue #30 of Outer Edge magazine..
