Bring on the tourists
Ships little threat to Arctic waters

by Chris Meyers Almey
Northern News Services

NNSL (June 16/97) - Muskoxen and polar bears will be doing double-takes in the Far North this summer as tourists line the railings of massive cruise ships to gawk at them.

And the tourists will be putting their cameras through their paces to record what is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event -- sailing through the fabled Northwest Passage, steaming around exotic High Arctic islands, or checking out Hudson Bay -- which to southerners smacks of one of the greatest tales of mutiny in history.

But the North is rich in tales and one which perhaps has the happiest ending is the Cold War. The end of the Cold War has enriched the lives of tourists who come to Canada's Arctic and the Inuit who live here.

Russian vessels now ply Canada's Northern waters with tourists who pump money into remote communities when they buy carvings or other treasures.

Despite the grounding of one cruise ship, the Hanseatic, in the Northwest Passage near Gjoa Haven last year, Tom Maher of the Canadian Coast Guard says he thinks arctic cruises for tourists are nothing but good news.

Based in Hay River, Maher said that Hanseatic grounding was a worry for a while, but floating booms easily contained the small amount of fuel that spilled from a ruptured tank.

The ship's crew had quickly pumped the fuel into another tank when the cruise liner ran aground.

Cruise liners don't haul oil but "we'd be a little jumpy at oil tankers," Maher says. A spill from an oil tanker could destroy everything.

The coast guard has equipment at the ready in Tuktoyaktuk to respond to emergencies in the Arctic Archipelago, and it's also placing oil-containment gear in Cambridge Bay to cut down the travelling distance and response time to deal with any spills west of Boothia Peninsula, the northernmost point of mainland North America.

For the Eastern Arctic and Hudson Bay, coast guard officials stationed in Parry Sound, Ont., co-ordinate cleanups and rescues or deal with any problems, with gear positioned in Iqaluit.

There's usually Canadian icebreakers in the East, because they handle sealifts there. But it was the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov that came to the rescue of the Hanseatic last year near Cambridge Bay.

And the Hanseatic is returning this year, along with a few Russian ships carrying tourists, to pump more money into local economies.

At least two companies have chartered Russian vessels to tour the Canadian Arctic, Quark Expeditions in Connecticut and Marine Expeditions in Toronto.

Marine Expeditions are using ships ranging in length from 235 feet to 384 feet with various categories of ice-resistant hulls, while Quark Expeditions has engaged the Kapitan Khlebnikov.

The icebreaker will be steaming west from Alaska, sailing through the Northwest Passage starting July 19 and then touring the High Arctic and Greenland starting Aug. 16.

Marine Expeditions has a tour of Greenland and Hudson Bay, winding up in Churchill, between July 23 and Aug. 3.

They are also sending a ship through the Northwest Passage from east to west between Aug. 14 and 24, starting at Greenland.

On the Greenland-Churchill adventure, passengers will see icebergs calved by the Jakobshavn glacier, which creates a new iceberg every five minutes.

The tourists take to Zodiacs to tour Resolution Island at the tip of Baffin Island, where they hike across the tundra to see peregrine falcons and caribou.

Artists in Lake Harbour will have a chance to sell their soapstone carvings when the tourists arrive.

Other points on the voyage include Digges Island -- a birder's paradise -- Walrus Island and Coates Island, a polar bear hangout. Churchill is the end of the voyage.

Quark Expeditions tours will stop at Herschel Island off the coast of Yukon a week after leaving Anchorage.

The tourists will probably see beluga whales in the shallow waters of the Mackenzie Delta before moving on to Sachs Harbour on Banks Island, home to thousands of muskoxen.

Victoria Island is the next point of interest if ice conditions permit, but as the ship steams through the Passage, tourists will watch for whales, polar bears and seals. A landing is planned on Ross Point.

Cambridge Bay will be host to the tourists before the Kapitan Khlebnikov continues to Beechey Island, the last known location of the doomed Franklin expedition.

Resolute is the next town for the tourists to have an opportunity to buy locally made art work, before they fly back south to Toronto.