Venture, Greenland & Canadian Arctic ex Kangerlussuaq to St Johns

Details

14 Night Cruise sailing from Kangerlussuaq to St Johns aboard Seabourn Venture.

14 Night Cruise sailing from Kangerlussuaq to St Johns aboard Seabourn Venture.

Witness the birth of icebergs in Greenland’s glacial fjords. Visit isolated Inuit villages and long-lost outposts of the Northwest Passage and explore seldom-visited Nunavut.

Highlights of this cruise:

Sisimiut
Located 24 miles (40 km) north of the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut is “rough, real and remote.” These three words cut to the core of Sisimiut’s reputation as an outdoor adventure-travel hub. It’s the second-largest city in Greenland with 5,600 inhabitants and was founded in 1756 under the leadership of the Danish missionary, Hans Egede. The name is Greenlandic meaning ‘place of fox dens.’ The area has been inhabited for 4,500 years, first by the Inuit peoples of the Saqqaq culture, Dorset culture, and then the Thule people, whose descendants comprise the majority of the current population.

One of the most picturesque towns in Greenland, Sisimiut is set in a tranquil fjord perched on bare outcrops of rock. Mount Nasaasaaq, 2,572’ (784 m) tall, is the backdrop for the town, where colorful houses of bright red, yellow, green and blue stand out in stark contrast to a landscape of gray and white. The Sisimiut Museum hosts a traditional Greenlandic peat house and the remains of an 18th century kayak.

Eqi Glacier
One of Greenland’s largest and most active glaciers, Eqi is on the island’s west coast about 80 km/50 miles north of Ilulissat. Its fjord and the area of Disko Bay nearby is littered with huge icebergs, sometimes towering hundreds of feet tall. The glacier face is up to 200m/626 ft. high, and over two miles/4km wide. In summer, it calves huge icebergs an average of every 15 – 30 minutes, making any close approach unsafe. But the calving events are dramatic and the sight and sound of an apartment-block-sized slab crashing into the sea is one you will never forget. The downdraft of cold air from the glacier and the ice field recommends a warm jacket, hat and gloves as you watch this display of nature’s extravagance from the deck.

Beechey Island
Beechey Island, located in the Wellington Channel just off the larger Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic was first discovered by Capt. William Edward Parry in 1819. It was named for the artist William Beechey by his son, a member of the expedition. Its protected harbor was used by Sir John Franklin as the first wintering camp for his ill-fated 1845 expedition in search of a Northwest Passage. When search parties reached the island in 1852, they discovered the graves of three members of the Franklin expedition who had perished while encamped there. Ironically, a member of that rescue expedition also died at Beechey and is also buried there. Their gravesites, along with a monument to Franklin, comprise a Canadian National Historic Site. Further along the shore stand the wooden ruins of Northumberland House, a refuge constructed by a search party from the timbers of wrecked whaling ships, on the slim chance that any of Franklin’s party might be able to return to Beechey after eight years. In 1903, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen visited the site to honor Franklin on the way to his successful transit of the Northwest Passage.

St Johns, Newfoundland
Saint John's is the most easterly point in North America and closest point of land to Europe. Due to it strategic location, Saint John's has been vitally important for centuries to explorers, adventurers, merchants, soldiers, pirates, and all manner of seafarers, who provided the foundation for this thriving modern day city. Explore this, one of the oldest cities in North America, and a city unlike any other. This "City of Legends" is cradled in a harbor carved from granite, and surrounded by hills running down to the ocean. Quaint side streets of a thousand colors are home to friendly faces that wait to greet you.