Just another roadside pull off where you can let the scenery blow your mind and expand your heart. We’ve been here two weeks now; we’re getting used to this kind of thing. (Oh, and just down the road you can see some cows . . . with a gigantic glacier in the background.) Photo Eric…
It’s time to leave Greenland. I am really going to miss this place. So long to the summer nights and the exquisite ice. We will meet again. I am bound for Iceland to meet some new friends, find an old friend and begin a most excellent road trip. See you there.
Karl-Ole Kristensen grew up in a house that overlooked this bay and the masses of icebergs from the glacier next door: Jakobshavn Glacier. Here, aboard the Esle in Ilulissat, Greenland, Karl-Ole holds white ice in his right hand and black ice in his left. “Black ice is like crystal, like a window,” he says. Black…
Back to beautiful Greenland. Qilakitsoq, where I am standing, is where the ancient mummies that became known around the world were found. Several graves remain here. I am looking back towards the community of Uummannaq over an inlet scattered with ice.
(Post 1 of 2) Hell Gate. 2 a.m. We have been traveling way north up the west coast of Ellesmere Island, but it’s time to go. The conditions that allowed us to be here are changing. First, the ice bridge that has been blocking the northern channel between Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg is breaking up,…
(Post 2 of 2) Ice Pilot Germain Tremblay stands on the bridge of the National Geographic Explorer at 2 a.m. We are southbound, approaching Hell Gate, and looking for a safe passage out to southern Ellesmere Island. “It’s going well,” he says. “Look to the horizon and you see how it is black? Black is…
I’m traveling aboard the National Geographic Explorer on an epic voyage. Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic are the generous sponsors of Meet the North, and their ship is taking me up the west coast of Ellesmere Island as I type. In an hour, we will enter Eureka Sound and begin to explore the world between two mythic…
When we first spot these bears from our ship, the male is separate from the mother and cub. After a few minutes, the male gives chase, but only briefly. When the mother changes direction and comes toward us, she doesn’t appear to see that the male is curving closer, behind a burm of ice. I…
This moody iceberg marked the route between Greenland and Baffin Island. I am now back in Nunavut, Canada. I’ll be heading further and further north for the next two weeks. Photo by David Cothran.
Gifts come in all shapes and sizes. I wanted to include at least one introduction to the polar bear with #meetthenorth. Here are two yearling cubs hanging out on the sea ice below the bow of our ship. This is an iPhone photo. No zoom, no filter.