Canadian Arctic: Kayaking the Fjords of Ellesmere

During the past 25 years we have conducted many kayak expeditions on Ellesmere Island, and we remain convinced that this trip is the ultimate adventure for sea kayakers and Arctic aficionados alike. Ellesmere is one of the world's most pristine wilderness areas. In this dramatic fjordland, located northwest of Greenland at nearly 80° North latitude, we retrace the footsteps of the earliest polar explorers, and in our kayaks we travel as the ancestral Inuit might have done. Paddling among calving glaciers and icebergs, our expeditions pass by numerous habitation and hunting sites of prehistoric peoples. Strewn along this coast are myriad ruins of the Thule culture, people who lived along these shores a thousand years ago. Only wildlife lives on this land now, and we may see musk oxen and Arctic fox.

The region is a polar desert, with dry, mild summers despite the extreme latitude. Twenty-four-hour sunlight enhances the photographic potential of the landscape, with magical backlighting of delicate woolly flowers or the glistening spray plumes of walrus and narwhal blowing in the fjords during the wee hours of dawn. Glacial valleys are a colorful counterpoint to the rock and ice, a summer carpet of green tundra, sedges, willows and bright Arctic poppies.

Despite the remoteness of Ellesmere, it abounds with captivating human history. In 1991 we were the first modern-day adventurers to visit Cape Sabine, the profoundly stirring site where polar explorer Adolphus Greely overwintered with his 25 starving U.S. soldiers in 1883-84 (the National Geographic Society commemorated this site with a bronze plaque in 1923). 

A few of our trips have visited the memorial cairn of the sole expedition member lost during Otto Sverdrup’s four years of High Arctic exploration. 

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police also have a colorful history in this part of Ellesmere, beginning in the 1920s with the Polar Inuit. These Greenland Inuit, descendants of the prehistoric Thule culture, were assigned as special constables in the police force, patrolling across Ellesmere and foraying south to Grise Fiord by dogsled to get mail and supplies. Today the RCMP installations are abandoned, but the buildings and campsites remain as a testament to the fortitude of the Mounties.

Nothing is more striking than the raw landscape of the Ellesmere fjordlands. No place surpasses its sheer, wild beauty and profound stillness. The two weeks we spend among these spectacular ice-choked waters, hanging glaciers, crystalline air and Arctic wildlife are often life-changing.

Jul. 19-Aug. 3
Aug. 1-16

Small Group Surcharge for Groups of 6-8: $1000
Single Supplement: none

Internal Flights
$3,800
Ottawa to Resolute Bay

*Price does not include international airfare or mandatory trip insurance. A 5% "Goods and Service Tax" (GST) will also be applied to Canadian residents; 2.5% GST to non Canadians. Prices are given in US Dollars.