Venture, Greenland Arctic & Atlantic Migration ex Kangerlussuaq to Bridgetown

Details

24 Night Cruise sailing from Kangerlussuaq to Bridgetown aboard Seabourn Venture.

24 Night Cruise sailing from Kangerlussuaq to Bridgetown aboard Seabourn Venture.

Explore the immensity of Greenland’s fjords and the dramatic cliffs of Nunavut, and onward to pink sand beaches in Bermuda and the sun-drenched islands of the Caribbean.

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.

St. Pierre et Miquelon
The tiny archipelago of St. Pierre et Miquelon is a territorial overseas collectivity of France, just 16 miles from the coast of Newfoundland, but nearly 2,400 miles from continental France. The islands were unoccupied when a Portuguese explorer stumbled on them in 1520. But by the time Jacques Cartier claimed them for France in 1536 they were already being visited by Basque and Breton fisherman exploiting the fertile fishing grounds of the Grand Banks. The intermittent dominion and tenuous but tenacious history of the islands is explained at L’Arche Museum in St. Pierre. Suffice it to say that the British and the French quarreled over and ceded control between themselves for centuries. However the population remains mostly descendants of Basque, Breton and Norman fishermen. They speak a metropolitan, rather than Canadian form of French, and their customs, foodways and personalities are firmly Gallic. Stroll the sloping streets, marveling at the vividly colored houses with bright, contrasting trim. The economy of the islands has traced the roller-coaster path of the fishing industry, with a healthy surge during the American era of Prohibition, when whisky and wine smuggling thrived. Lashed by the North Atlantic winds and chilled by the cold Labrador Current, the islands have a severe beauty enhanced by panoramic seascapes. The tiny island of Ile aux Marins is being rehabilitated into an open-air museum recalling the traditional life of the fishermen. Miquelon Island, and its conjoined sister Langlade were once separate by a channel, called the Mouth of Hell, which claimed over 600 shipwrecks before Nature closed the gap with a sand isthmus. Jaunty red-and-white lighthouses add photogenic accents. The official currency is the Euro, and though Canadian dollars are widely accepted, change is given in Euros. In the museum, a place of distinction is set aside for the only guillotine ever used in North America. It was imported from Martinique in 1889 to dispatch a murderer and then retired.

Forte de France
Fort-de-France, Martinique's capital, with its narrow streets and iron grill-worked balconies, brings to mind New Orleans or Nice. This distinctly French island is a full-fledged department of France, with members in parliament and the senate. Naturally, everyone speaks French, as well as a rapid-fire Creole. The island features a varied landscape, from quiet beaches to lush rain forest to imposing Mont Pelee. Not surprisingly, the shopping in Fort-de-France has a decidedly Gallic flair. Bienvenue to this bit of France in the Caribbean.

Bridgetown
Barbados has retained many of the trappings of its British colonial heritage. Judges and barristers wear proper robes and wigs, police don helmets styled after London bobbies and cricket remains a national passion. Barbados also has all the sporting appeal of the rest of the Caribbean, with pristine beaches, powerful surf and crystal clear waters. Brightly colored homes and hibiscus flowers mingle with mahogany trees and English churches dating back to the 17th century.