Alaska

Leaving Nome was the start of a long haul. North through the Bering Straits then east across the Beaufort Sea to the start of the North-West Passage. There are, I imagine, many interesting places to visit along the route but rules and regulations, as ever, get in the way. To land at any other places in Alaska we would need special permits and a pilot. The pilot would then need to fly back to Nome. All this is possible but extremely expensive. Trust me, if a Norwegian company turns round and says something is too expensive then it really is extortionately priced.

We crossed the international date line. Albeit briefly. This meant, technically, that we sailed into tomorrow and then came back again. Of course, the international dateline is purely imaginary. A cartographical convenience. So, what actually happened was absolutely nothing. However, if we had continued to sail west, if we went all the way round the world, then we would have lost a day. This happened to Magellan’s expedition of 1522 when they arrived at Cape Verde on Wednesday, 9 July 1522 (ship’s time) to discover that it was Thursday. Alaska used to belong to Russia and was considered to be west of the dateline until it was sold to the US. At the ceremony, 3:30 pm Saturday, 7^th October 1867 it became Friday. At the same time the date jumped from the 7^th to the 18^th as they changed from the Julian calendar (Russia) to the Gregorian calendar (US).

Off Point Barrow we hove to for a few hours for helicopter operations. This is right at the top lefthand corner of Alaska where unfortunately someone that had joined in Nome became seriously ill and needed to be evacuated. It is not possible to land a helicopter on the Amundsen so the patient had to be winched from the top deck.

We sailed on past Prudhoe Bay, crossed into Canadian waters and eventually made landfall at Herchel Island. A rather grim and desolate place, this is where whalers used to overwinter their ships. Named by Franklin (the man who ate his boots) in 1826, the island became a haven for the large whaling ships of the late 19^th century. By then, the Beaufort Sea was one of the last refuges of the extremely profitable Bowhead Whale. The Arctic whaling season was very short making over-wintering necessary. A small settlement was built although most sailors stayed onboard their vessels. Today the remains of some of the buildings are still there. The harbour area is under threat from rising sea levels. The main part of the island is endangered by coastal erosion (up to 3 m/year) and the melting permafrost causing active slumps.

On the next day we met the Nansen. This is the sister ship to Roald Amundsen named after the other famous Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen. Built at the same time, the two ships look like identical twins. We paused for a few minutes, bow to bow, while everyone came out on deck to wave like demented gibbons. Nansen has just completed the Northwest Passage (NWP) and is heading west. We are going east and will shortly enter the NWP.

The following afternoon we passed north of Tuktoyaktuk, scene of our earlier adventures with a puncture. Unfortunately, we were so far offshore that we could see nothing. By the evening, we arrived at the Smoking Hills. I had noticed this on the itinerary but rather naively imagined it to be an island with clouds on it. What we actually found were genuine burning cliffs. The land was literally on fire. The fires result from autoignition of sulphur-rich lignite deposits says Wikipedia. Definitely one of the more remarkable sights either of us have ever seen. We cruised slowly along the cliffs allowing us to have a good look and take many photographs. Later I learned that typically the area is shrouded in fog and the smoking hills are barely visible. From the Smoking Hills we steamed north a little, rounded Cape Parry and set a course east in to the NWP proper.