Out of the Northwest Passage

Kugluktuk: Place of Moving Waters

Our voyage begins in Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit homeland that takes in the land, water, and ice of Arctic Canada. At its western edge sits Kugluktuk, where the Coppermine River pours into Coronation Gulf. In Inuinnaqtun, the name means “place of moving waters,” after the currents and rapids where river, tundra, and sea meet. This is an Inuinnait community, and life here still revolves around the river and the nuna (land): fishing, harvesting, art, and travel on the land. The Inuinnaqtun language carries stories and knowledge found only in the western Arctic. Our local hosts will introduce you to the people whose homelands shape the first days of the journey.

Then we board the Ocean Victory and turn east, under the low gold light of Arctic autumn. This year also marks one hundred years since the St. Roch was launched, and with the Vancouver Maritime Museum, her story becomes one thread in a much larger journey.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Kitikmeot Region
Inuinnait Country

Heading east, the land spreads out in low tundra, scattered islands, wetlands, and horizons that seem to go on forever. Wide sounds narrow into channels that thread past gravel beaches and archaeological sites. Watch for muskoxen and caribou on the land, seals and whales in the water, and migratory birds gathering as autumn sets in. This is Inuinnait country. Their language, Inuinnaqtun, holds a detailed map of place names, travel routes, stories, and knowledge of the land. Generations of harvesting caribou, muskoxen, seals, and fish have shaped their clothing, tools, food, and ways of moving through the seasons. Today, Inuinnait communities are working to pass their language and culture on, keeping tradition alive in modern life.

The St. Roch spent two winters here during her 1940–42 crossing, first at Walker Bay on Victoria Island, then at Pasley Bay on the Boothia Peninsula. Inuit taught the crew to ice-fish and hunt, and that knowledge helped them survive. Picture it: months locked in ice, in a wooden ship, a long way from anywhere. Today, landings, tundra walks, community visits, and Zodiac outings bring the people, wildlife, and wide-open land of the Kitikmeot up close.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Ikirahaq (Bellot Strait)
The Narrow Passage

Ikirahaq is a narrow, 25-kilometre channel between Somerset Island and the Boothia Peninsula. At its tightest point, barely a kilometre separates the two shores. Waters from the eastern and western Arctic meet here beneath steep granite walls, pushing strong tides through the strait.

Keep watch along the shores and among the ice for seals, whales, seabirds, and sometimes polar bears. On the south side sits Murchison Promontory, the northernmost point of mainland North America.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

In the Wake of Franklin

In 1845, Sir John Franklin sailed from England with HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to find the Northwest Passage. His crew spent their first winter here, and three of his men never left. In 1854, Thomas Morgan of HMS Investigator was buried beside them, a quiet marker of the long search for Franklin’s lost expedition. Beechey became a depot and landmark for the search parties that followed. Amundsen and Bernier stopped here. So did Henry Larsen and the St. Roch, on August 20, 1944. For Larsen and his crew, the visit meant a great deal, and archival photos show them gathered beside the Franklin cenotaph, adding their own chapter to the island’s story.

Nearby are the ruins of Northumberland House. All around, the land is stark and wind-scoured, just gravel, ice, and the sound of gulls over still water. Inuit testimony was key to tracing the expedition’s final movements and, generations later, to finding its lost ships. Stand here for a while. Franklin’s failure opened the door to new maps, new colonial ambitions, and a lasting southern presence in Inuit Nunangat. The land holds all of it, quietly.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

The Beating Heart of the Eastern Arctic

Tallurutiup Imanga (Lancaster Sound) is what keeps the eastern Canadian Arctic alive. Nutrient-rich water and pockets of open sea support narwhal, beluga and bowhead whales, walrus, seals, polar bears, and some of the largest seabird colonies in the Canadian Arctic. As autumn comes on, whales and seals keep moving through the channels while birds gather before heading south. Inuit have travelled, harvested, and lived with these waters for thousands of years.

Today, Inuit stewardship and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit knowledge) are at the heart of protecting this National Marine Conservation Area. Our Inuit expedition team and naturalists will show you how current, ice, wildlife, and people are all connected here.

The St. Roch entered these waters in 1942, after surviving Ikirahaq and sailing Prince Regent Inlet. After two winters in the west, this was the final stretch toward Baffin Bay and the Atlantic. Two years later, she sailed back through in the opposite direction, all in a single season. To the north rises Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island on Earth, with broad plateaus, glacial valleys, and open tundra. Archaeological sites show that people lived here for centuries.

Walk the tundra in its autumn colours, cruise the coast by Zodiac, and feel just how big this place really is.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

usuittuq (Grise Fiord)
The Place That Never Thaws

Tucked between the mountains and sea of southern Ellesmere Island, Ausuittuq means “the place that never thaws.” Canada’s northernmost civilian community sits among glaciers and open tundra, beside water that stays locked in sea ice for much of the year. Its beginnings are hard. In 1953, the Canadian government relocated Inuit families here from Inukjuak and Mittimatalik, and that history is still a central part of Ausuittuq’s story. So are more than seventy years of life built on family, ingenuity, and culture carried forward. Hunting, travel on the nuna, art, and the turn of the seasons are woven into everyday life here.

Spend time with our local hosts and see what it means to call the High Arctic home. The landscape is vast, and the community at its heart is strong.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean VIctory

Smith Sound
Between Two Coastlines

Smith Sound is where Greenland and Ellesmere Island face each other across the channel between Baffin Bay and Kane Basin, and the low autumn light shows just how big it is.

The sun rides low, stretching long shadows over mountains and glaciers. Fresh snow may dust the high slopes, and the air turns crisp as twilight lingers. Icebergs and drifting ice move slowly between the two coasts. Inuit have travelled and hunted here for generations. Later, nineteenth-century expeditions pushed through in search of Franklin and a route to the North Pole. Their stories still hang in the air. The ice, the currents, the weather, and sheer distance still decide how this passage goes.

Bundle up, head out on deck, and watch the light change everything.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Baffin Bay
A Sea Between Seasons

In September, Baffin Bay sits on the edge of a change. The sea ice is close to its yearly low, but colder nights are already starting the slow turn toward freeze-up in the northwest. Icebergs drift with the currents.

Whales and seals are still busy, and seabirds are heading south for the winter. Today is a full day on board, with time to watch the sea and sky shift around you.

Join a presentation or workshop, or settle in for a conversation with our Inuit cultural educators, naturalists, and historians about the wildlife, cultures, and exploration history of the Northwest Passage. In between, the decks are where everyone gathers, calling out wildlife and watching icebergs slide across the horizon.

Then, as the light fades, real darkness returns to the bay. If the sky is clear, keep looking up. The aurora may come out to meet you.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Northwest Greenland
Kalaallit Nunaat

Kalaallit Nunaat is the Kalaallisut name for Greenland, and along this northwest coast the sea and the culture are hard to separate. Kalaallisut, Greenland’s official language, holds the names, stories, and knowledge of these shores. Across the west, Kalaallit culture shapes the food, the art, and everyday life with the sea. The coast breaks into islands, narrow channels, sheltered bays, and deep fjords walled in by steep mountains. The West Greenland Current carries huge icebergs north from Disko Bay and beyond, a slow flotilla of towers, arches, and cracked blue faces.

Small communities sit on rocky islands and in natural harbours. Fishing and hunting still anchor the local economy and the table, and boats are how people get from one place to the next. In autumn, the tundra turns red, gold, and ochre against dark rock and drifting ice.

Explore by ship, by Zodiac, and on foot. Visit a community, walk the shoreline, and take in how big this place is, and how deeply it’s lived in.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Ilulissat
The Place of Icebergs

At the UNESCO-listed Ilulissat Icefjord, the glacier Sermeq Kujalleq carries ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet down to the sea.

Enormous icebergs drift into Disko Bay in a slow, shifting parade of towers, arches, and cracked blue faces. Ilulissat means “icebergs,” and here the ice shapes both the landscape and the town. Follow the boardwalk out for sweeping views across the icefjord, then stop in at the Ilulissat Icefjord Centre to learn how ice, climate, culture, and history connect. Back in town, you’ll find a busy harbour, museums, restaurants, cafés, shops, and colourful neighbourhoods. It’s one of Greenland’s liveliest communities, where people live, work, and gather within sight and sound of the moving ice. Grab a coffee, find a view, and listen for the ice.

Included Meals

All on-board meals

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Sisimiut Coast
Autumn on the Western Shore

The Sisimiut coast is a mix of mountain ridges, sheltered waterways, offshore islands, and long fjords reaching toward the Greenland Ice Sheet. In autumn, the tundra turns deep shades of red and gold with crowberry, dwarf birch, willow, and moss, and the low light sharpens every edge of rock and water. People have lived along this coast for more than 4,500 years. The Saqqaq, Dorset, and Thule peoples each left traces behind, and today’s communities still look to the sea for travel, fishing, and connection.

Explore by Zodiac, head out on a hike, visit a local community, or simply watch from the deck. Whales may still be feeding offshore, and seabirds are making their last moves south. As the evenings darken, keep an eye on the sky. The northern lights may make an appearance.

Included Meals

All on-board meals

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Kangerlussuaq
Journey’s End

Our last stretch runs through Kangerlussuaq Fjord, one of the longest fjords in Greenland. Mountains, glacial valleys, and pale meltwater lead us from the coast toward the interior. Kangerlussuaq sits in a broad glacial valley between the Greenland Ice Sheet and the sea. Dry, steady weather brought an American air base here during the Second World War, and it’s still one of Greenland’s main aviation gateways. Long before that, Inuit travelled and hunted across this land.

After we disembark, we transfer to the airport for the charter flight south. From the moving waters of Kugluktuk to this glacial valley, you’ve crossed the Northwest Passage from west to east, through a whole season of changing light. The North doesn’t end here. It comes home with you.

Included Meals

Breakfast