Gjoa Haven

Monday, September 1
Heading south from Bellot Strait there are two potential routes to Cambridge Bay. Both go through Franklin Strait and Larsen Sound. Then, depending on ice conditions the choice is either through Victoria Strait, or, around the east side of King William Island. The King William Island route is quite a bit longer and goes via the hamlet of Gjoa Haven. Unfortunately, this year, Victoria Strait hadn't opened yet (it's still not open) and we were forced to take the longer route. We got through the lead that came down from Bellot to King William by the skin of our teeth. Looking back now, the lead was only open for three days. Three boats, including us, went through on day two, Drina followed on day three. Shortly thereafter, the ice moved back to the shore and the lead slammed shut with two solid plugs of 'orange' (7-8/10) ice.

On the trip south we encountered four large bands of ice. The first two were easy and we passed them close inshore. We wasted quite a few hours trying to figure out how to get into the inshore lead of bands three and four which ended up being interconnected. Once we figured out the way in, it was easy, but, we'd lost our daylight. We'd heard there was drift ice in James Ross Strait and we were leery of going through in the dark. We thought we'd poke our bow in and see what happened. Quickly we encountered three sheets of ice heading our way and we quickly turned around, banging into a small berg in the process. It was too late to anchor so we stood off all night motoring up/down a safe patch of water. We left the ice behind us as we entered St. Roch Basin. What a relief to no longer have to do a constant ice watch! The sun came out and the temperature soared to 5C. It felt positively tropical after a week of temperatures hovering around 0C with snow and sleet. We sat outside for the first time since leaving Ireland.

We arrived at Gjoa Haven very early, just in time to see Arctic Tern and Novara leaving (they are much faster than us). Drina had caught us and pulled in just a couple of hours after we did. Unfortunately, it was a holiday Monday, so, the hoped-for visit to the grocery store didn't happen as it was closed.

Gjoa at anchor in Gjoa Haven

Gjoa Haven has great historical significance as it was the place where Amundsen and his Gjøa spent two winters during the very first transit of the North West Passage by boat in 1903-1906. He spent his time there learning the Inuit way to survive Arctic conditions which stood him in good stead later during his Antarctica adventures. It was also close to Gjoa Haven where a number of skeletons belonging to members of the lost Franklin expedition have been found. This was reflected in local place names like Starvation Cove.

We left very early Tuesday morning, in thick fog, bound for Cambridge Bay.

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Gjoa Haven 1/9/2014 12:00 68°37.6'N 095°52.6'W