Travels with Louis
Day 7 — Iceberg!
Location: 69°12.797'N 65°59.114'W
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This is a bit like sailing into a dream. Crossing the Arctic Circle, we encountered
the first ice of the trip, which added immeasureably to the look of the northern seascape.
All around was broken pack ice, which the ship pushed through with ease (though not
without dramatic bashing and crashing along the sides of the five-centimetre-thick
ice-belt along her hull). Sailors of the 18th and 19th centuries believed that beyond
a cordon of ice at these latitudes was an open polar sea surrounding the North Pole.
Indeed, we have come through that ice and back into open ocean. However, in this open
water are icebergs, lots of massive icebergs like the one that sank the Titanic. Calved
off the glaciers of Greenland, they first made their way first north, then curved west
on ocean currents, and are now sailing, like great ships carrying the climatic history
of the world in their multitudinous layers, south to Newfoundland and beyond. There
are at least two Titanic connections on the Louis.
One is that director of the Titanic film, James Cameron, used the Louis in her home port
of Dartmouth, N.S. to shoot the opening scene of the movie, where the old lady lands aboard
ship (the Louis was done up to look like a deep-sea research vessel) to see images of the
Titanic on the bottom of the ocean. A second one is that all of the engineering officers
aboard the Louis wear purple bands between the rank stripes on their epaulettes. I asked
about these and learned that in honour of the engineers on the Titanic, all of whom died
keeping the fires going as long as possible while the ship went down, King George decreed
that they would be remembered by those who stoked the "fires" of later ships
with royal purple with their gold braid.
Posted by James Raffan on Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Day 8 — Enter, The Passage
Location: 73°51.976'N 73°58.111'W
We've sailed out of darkness and the world unfolding before us in 24-hour daylight
is getting more spectacular by the minute. We're in Lancaster Sound now, the
gateway of the Northwest Passage. To the north is the rugged coast of Devon Island
with its many glaciers winding to the sea. To the south is Bylot Island and the north
coast of Baffin Island. You can't be here without thinking about the historic
hunt for this fabled passage. Back in the 16th century, Spanish captains talked about
the Strait of Anian, which was supposed to be a temperate connection through North
America that would allow them to sail from Atlantic to Pacific. That waterway turned
out not to exist.
Interestingly, for a time during the 19th century, this entrance to the Northwest Passage
was thought not to exist as well. When Captain James Ross came to this point in 1818, the
mouth of Lancaster Sound was blocked by ice, but he looked west and thought he saw a range
of high hills he called the "Croaker Mountains" blocking passage. These turned
out to be a mirage, which made Ross the butt of Admiralty jokes for the rest of his life.
But his second in command, William Parry (who prudently did not disagree with the boss
until he got back to London) returned and became one of the most celebrated and successful
contributors of all time to the search for the Northwest Passage. Today, though, there
are no mountains in sight, at least on the western horizon. The sun is shining, the water
is ice free, and the waves and three or four of the Louis' throbbing diesel engines
are pushing us farther and farther into the passage.
Posted by James Raffan on Thursday, July 27, 2006
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