Kathleen Lippa
Northern News Services

Gjoa Haven (Sep 01/03) - Ice has forced the replica Gjoa ship recreating the voyage from Oslo, Norway to Gjoa Haven for that community's 100th celebrations to turn back.

"The ice in the Peel and Larsen Sound will unfortunately not open up this year," Knut Espen Solberg, the ship's captain, said in an e-mail last week.

The seven-man Gjoa crew who were planning to recreate the original voyage of 100 years ago right down to the two-year stay in Gjoa Haven, will spend the winter in Disko, Greenland instead.

"(The ship) is not going to make it for the celebrations," said Raymond Kamookak at the hamlet office. "But we're going to go ahead with the celebrations anyways."

There are plans in the works to fly Solberg in for the celebrations which kick off Sept. 5.

The community is coping well with the news so far, Kamookak said.

"They're okay," he said of his community. "We know this kind of thing can happen up here. Every year is never the same."

Charlie Cahill, chairperson of the Northwest Passage Centennial Project said people are "disappointed," about the fact the ship won't make it. But they are still in good spirits.

The original Gjoa, led by captain Roald Amundsen, was the first ship -- in 400 years of trying -- to successfully make it through the Northwest Passage, taking three years to do it, from 1903 to 1906.