Detailed Port Descriptions

Day 1        Montreal, Quebec

Fly to Montreal. Silversea offers a pre-cruise hotel night prior to the charter flight to Iqaluit, depending on Silversea's air programme flight schedule. In the case that your flight is the same day, Silversea will offer a hotel day-use. Hotels are either located in the city centre or at an airport property to accommodate guests on very early/late flight schedules. Hotel: Fairmont Queen Elizabeth (or similar)

Day 2         Charter Flight to Iqaluit, Nunavut

In order to streamline the embarkation procedure, Silversea will provide charter or group space flights between Montreal-Iqaluit. Silversea offers a pre-cruise hotel night/s prior to embarking. You will transfer to hotel for overnight stay. Hotel: Aqsarniit Hotel & Conference Center (or similar)

Day 3          Iqaluit, Nunavut to Pond Inlet, Nunavut

In order to streamline the embarkation procedure, Silversea will provide charter to Pond Inlet.  Today you will embark Silversea Silver Endeavour. Located in northern Baffin Island Pond Inlet is a small predominantly Inuit community with a population of roughly 1 ,500 inhabitants. In 1818 the British explorer John Ross named a bay in the vicinity after the English astronomer John Pond. Today Pond Inlet is considered one of Canada's "jewels of the North" thanks to several picturesque glaciers and mountain ranges nearby. Many archaeological sites of ancient Dorset and Thule peoples can be found near Pond Inlet. The Inuit hunted caribou, ringed and harp seals, fish, polar bears, and walrus, as well as narwhals, geese, ptarmigans and Arctic hares long before European and American whalers came here to harvest bowhead whales. Pond Inlet is also known as a major center of Inuit art especially the printmaking and stone carving.

Day 4      Cape Hay, Bylot Island

Day 5       Beechey Island

Beechey Island is a small island off the southwest coast of Devon Island, separated by a narrow waterway called the Barrow Strait. Captain William Edward Parry was the first European to visit the island in 1819. His lieutenant, Frederick William Beechey, named the island after his father, the artist William Beechey (1753–1839). Beechey Island played a significant role in the history of Arctic Exploration. During the winter of 1845-46, Sir John Franklin and his men camped on the island as part of their ill-fated quest to find the Northwest Passage. Mummified remains of three of Franklin’s crew were discovered, giving a better understanding of what happened before the disappearance of the expedition. In 1850 Edward Belcher used the island as a base while surveying the area. Later, in 1903, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen stopped at the island at the beginning of his successful voyage in search for the Northwest Passage. Subsequently, Beechey Island has been declared a "Territorial Historic Site" by the Northwest Territories government in 1975 and a National Historic Site of Canada in 1993. It now is part of Nunavut.

Day 6       Creswell Bay

Day 7        Prince Leopold Island

Day 8       Devon Island (Radstock Bay)

Devon Island is Canada’s sixth largest island and was first seen by Europeans in the early 17th century. The Thule culture had already settled there many centuries before, and left behind qarmat homes, made of rocks, whale bones, rock and sod walls, and skins for roofs that tell a story of over 800 years of human habitation. Other striking finds in this area are the many fossils of corals, crinoids and nautiloids that can be seen. Just across Lancaster Sound is Prince Leopold Island, a Canadian Important Bird Area, a federally listed migratory bird sanctuary, and a Key Migratory Bird Terrestrial Habitat site with large numbers of Thick-billed Murres, Northern Fulmars and Black-legged Kittiwakes that breed there.

Day 9         Croker Bay

Croker Bay is a vast cerulean deep-water bay nestled on the southern coast of Devon Island which is in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. This 40km (24 miles) long Arctic waterway boasts rugged rock terraced mountains which sit atop two beautiful blue ice tidewater glaciers. Devon Island is Earth’s largest uninhabited island and is a breath-taking 55,247 km2 (21,331 square miles) patchwork of Precambrian gneiss, Paleozoic siltstones and shales. Known locally as “Mars on Earth” the dazzling otherworldly landscape offers spectacular views. The snow-topped ancient stone is dappled with rich hues of terracotta, red and blue. Devon Island is one of many islands that make up the picturesque Canadian Artic Archipelago and has a scattering of mountain ranges including the Treuter Mountains, Haddington Range and the Cunningham Mountains. Croker Bay was named in 1819 by the explorer William Edward Parry in honour of John Wilson Croker, a parliamentarian and Secretary to the Admiralty.

Day 9         Dundas Harbour, Devon Island

Austere, remote and a rather severe, Devon Island is as close the closest thing to Mars on planet Earth. The rocky terrain, dry, cold climate and 14-mile wide crater on the north of the island have made it home for a team of research scientists from NASA, who live in the small research station during the Arctic summer. Other than these few men and women, Devon Island is completely unpeopled, and the largest uninhabited island in the world. There was human habitation as recently as 1951, when a Canadian Mounted Police post that had been on the island since 1924 to monitor illegal activities such as whaling closed. At 320 miles long and 80–100 miles wide, it is the largest of the Parry Islands. Dundas Harbour is found in the south of the island. Then island is set in the icy Arctic Ocean, south of Ellesmere Island and west of Baffin Bay. This make it Canada’s sixth largest island. Discovered by English explorer William Baffin in 1616, the island did not make it on to any maps until William Edward Parry’s exploration of the Arctic in 1820. Despite the desolate conditions, the island does show signs of having sustained human life as many as 3,000 years ago, with the remains of a Thule settlement dating back to 1000 A.D., including tent rings, middens and a gravesite providing testament to the fact. The island is named Talluruti in local Inuktitut language, literally translating as “a woman’s chin with tattoos on it”, as from a distance the deep crevasses resemble traditional facial tattoos.

Day 10       Grise Fjord, Ellesmere Island

Nestled on the southern tip of Canada’s Ellesmere Island Grise Fjord is a remote and isolated wonderful wilderness. Located at the top of the world at 1,160 kilometers (721 miles) north of the Artic Circle you’ll gaze in wonder at the frozen beauty as you enter the fjord. The stunning ice-blue waters of the fjord are tucked between two towering snow-dusted cliffs. The land never thaws out even when the sun shines twenty-four hours a day from April through to August. Indeed, the fjord’s name in Inuktittuq means “the place that never thaws”. In 1899, Norwegian explorer Otto Sverdrup named the place “pig fjord” because the sounds of the local walrus called to mind a chorus of grunting pigs. Grise is the Norwegian word for pig. Today you’ll find a profusion of local wildlife: Ringed seal, Bearded seal and Harp seal, walruses, Narwhal and Beluga Whales can all be seen in the sea. The skies are home to Ravens, Ivory gulls, Jaegers, Geese, Gyrfalcons, Kittiwakes and Northern Fulmars. Polar bears and Muskoxen also roam the land of this northern wilderness. In 1953 the hamlet was formed at Grise Fjord by the Canadian government. They relocated Inuit families from Inukjuak, Quebec. This is the most northerly public community in Canada and is comprised of no more than 150 residents. This is one of the most cold inhabited places on the planet with an average temperature of a chilly -16.5 degrees centigrade.

Day 11        Qaanaaq (Thule), Greenland

Located on the Hayes Peninsula and bathed by Inglefield Fjord, Qaanaaq – formerly named Utlima Thule, is a charming Greenlandic town. Known as the northernmost town in Greenland, Qaanaaq offers many incredible experiences very specific to the Arctic. The famous Midnight Sun for instance, a period during which the sun never sets. Hard to picture but extraordinary to witness, this phenomenon is visible between late-April and late-August. Land of extremes, Greenland welcomed various immigrating peoples, ready to face the Arctic challenging living conditions. Among these, the Inuit left their mark in Qaanaaq. Their hunting traditions with kayaks and dog sleds are still present and necessary to survival, given Qaanaaq’s isolation. Visit the town’s museum to discover more about the area’s history and the Inuit culture. The Qaanaq museum can be found in a white house in the middle of the town’s colourful houses. The latter used to be the home of famous Arctic explorer Knud Rasmussen who set off seven expeditions from Qaanaaq’s area. The museum contains an exhibition about him and other explorers, but also historical items like “tupilaqs”, avenging monsters made with various objects like animal bones, which have great importance in the Greenlandic Inuit religion. Off the town’s shores and in the shade of massive icebergs, the cold waters home thousands of narwhals. These toothed whales also nicknamed the “unicorns of the sea” love coming to Qaanaaq to breed during summer, giving you a chance to spot some of them during this period.

Day 12       Cape York, Greenland

Visit the arctic seascape of Cape York, Greenland. Located on the northwestern coast of Greenland in Baffin Bay, Cape York is an important geographical feature delimiting the Melville Bay at its northwestern end and Kiatassuaq Island at its other end. There is a chain of coastal islands that stretches between the two capes, most notably Meteorite Island, named for the discovery one of the world’s largest iron meteorites in Savissivik, a settlement on the island. The iron from this meteorite attracted Inuit migrating from Arctic Canada who used the metal in making tools and harpoons. Visitors to this region will see iconic drifting blue-white icebergs that are shrinking as the earth temperature rises.

Day 13       Pond Inlet, Nunavut

Today your expedition comes to an end with a new found respect and love of what the Arctic has to offer. You will disembark Silversea Silver Endeavour. In order to streamline the disembarkation procedure, Silversea will provide charter flights to Iqaluit. You will transfer to hotel for overnight stay. Hotel: Aqsarniit Hotel & Conference Center (or similar)

Day 14       Iqaluit, Nunavut to Montreal

Today you will board the charter flights or group space flights to Montreal to connect to your flight home.   Silversea will offer a post-cruise hotel night/s prior to returning home, as indicated on your booking invoice, depending on Silversea's air programme flight schedule. In the case that your flight is the same day, we will offer a hotel day-use. Most of our hotels are centrally located in the city centre, however, we also partner with several airport properties to accommodate guests on very early/late flight schedules. Hotel: Fairmont Queen Elizabeth (or similar)

Day 15      Montreal, Quebec

If you have stayed at the post-cruise hotel in Montreal, today you will fly home well rested and ready to share tales of your Arctic Adventure.