Into the Canadian Arctic: We brought Christmas gifts to Nunavut and wildlife returned the favour

Wishing for wildlife sightings in the Canadian Arctic is like writing a letter to Santa Claus.

Polar bears, narwhals, and seals were scribbled across every passenger’s wish list. We dreamed of an ambitious Arctic adventure so magical it might require a Christmas miracle. 

Would we wake up to walruses, whales, and Arctic wolves?

“Maybe,” John Blyth, the expedition leader, would answer, occasionally with a parental wink. 

Emma Sutherland, our big sister marine biologist, was quick to temper expectations, suggesting that a narwhal sighting was nearly as likely as catching a reindeer-pulled sleigh sailing across the sky.

Our small-ship journey through Canada’s Northwest Passage held the promise of unforgettable animal encounters, but like a note to St. Nick, we could do nothing more than hope that the natural world of Nunavut placed us on the nice list.

Pond Inlet is home to Canadian Inuit, polar bears, and narwhal pods

Holiday cheer filled the Aurora Lounge on the ‘MS Ocean Endeavour’. We hummed along to Christmas carols and watched icebergs float by. The calendar read 01 September, but it was the 24 December in our minds. 

Scotch tape, scissors, and rolls of wrapping paper jumped between tables as we wrapped toys for the children of Pond Inlet, an Inuit community on Baffin Island’s coast. Fewer than 2,000 locals call “Mittimatalik” home, so an arrival of 200 blue-jacketed cruise passengers packed the cultural centre.

Our Inuktitut-speaking hosts performed dances, throat singing, and physical contests like musk ox battles and high kick competitions. Some even let us in on their reindeer games, challenging confident cruisers to lip pulls. This tug-of-war-esque match gave a literal meaning to ‘getting a taste of traditional Canadian Inuit culture’. 

Backstage, I gave a gift of dried musk ox to performer Lamech Kadloo, and in seeming reciprocation, Nunavut matched it with our first ‘wildlife’ sightings: A glimpse of polar bear hides drying outside of a home - and fresh narwhal meat samples back aboard the ship.  

What wildlife waits beneath Arctic waters

The following days were an Advent calendar of Arctic animals. 

I spied a small white speck through my binoculars, but it wasn’t as pint-sized as the starfish or amoeba clinging to my zodiac. It was our first polar bear sighting. 

Its wide, sandy paw prints on the opposite side of Cuming Inlet reminded us that we shouldn’t get too close to the apex predator of the Arctic. Knowing that these wondrous creatures were wandering along our route was enough to keep our cameras at the ready. 

Rounding the peninsula of Devon Island, we found Powell Inlet was much more crowded than the world’s largest uninhabited island implied. A polar bear roamed the coastline while a dozen walruses played peekaboo in the inlet’s bay. 

Our heads craned at the 250-metre vertical cliffs of Prince Leopold Island as thousands of black-legged kittiwakes soared above. It was only when our eyes returned to the shoreline did a polar bear appear - waiting for chicks to fall from their nests. 

Nunavut’s eager anticipation presented us with the grandest gift midway through our voyage.

A polar bear swam across the channel as we approached Prescott Island. A mere hour after our boots touched the stone-covered shore, John Blythe stopped in his tracks, dropped his voice to a whisper, and urged us to move towards the waterline quietly.

The white and grey shapes rising and falling in the water weren’t wave crests: they were beluga whales.  

One, two, ten, too many to count, moulting and milling about the beachline. So close that we could hear them sing, so close that they’d rub against our legs before we even got waist-deep in the water. 

Emma Sutherland estimated 500 beluga whales waved to us from the inner harbour - an incredibly rare sighting that even our well-sailed expedition team couldn’t believe. 

A surprising diversity of flora and fauna thrive in the Arctic

Despite breaking nautical superstitions - like clanking our glasses while crossing Zenith Point - Nunavut never placed us on the naughty list. 

The eerie Dundas Harbour was littered with cetacean bones, an abandoned RCMP settlement, and a small cemetery, underlining that even the most resourceful cannot endure this environment. And, yet, a ringed seal still swam alongside our ship. 

Beechey Island was no different: Gravestones from the ill-fated Franklin Expedition captured our attention on land, but a zodiac cruise around the sea ice manifested a polar bear and its cub stealthily hunting a bearded seal. 

But the northernmost territory of Canada did challenge us to expand our definition of nature’s ‘gifts’ beyond wildlife viewing - such as the privilege of stomping across musk ox scat in Pasley Bay to see a 4,000-year-old whale bone. 

When our boots touched ‘empty”’ landscapes, geologist Dr Marc St-Onge lit up like a Christmas tree when explaining how astounding these 1.9 billion-year-old petrified stromatolites and three billion-year-old granitic gneiss were. 

Naturalist Rogier Gruys let no one overlook the netvein willow, alpine bearberry, or purple saxifrage growing beneath our feet. And on the days when we saw ‘just birds’through our binoculars, author and ornithologist Steve Burrows sang of the dozens of Arctic tern, gyrfalcon, and northern fulmar he saw - as if he were writing an avian variation of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.  

Even cancelled shore excursions due to dense fog, ice flow, or, ironically, the presence of polar bears led to quality time spent with new friends onboard. 

Wild, wondrous nature is Nunavut’s greatest gift to travellers

‘Twas the night before our final expedition, and all through the ship, the only creatures stirring were those of us in the coffee lounge. 

Nunavut must have sensed the cookies and milky cappuccino set out on my table, for it sent one last magical gift across the sky. 

“Northern Lights!” a passenger called, zipping their jacket up as fast as I sprung from my seat to watch the green hues of aurora borealis dance for the very first time. 

While others brought home souvenirs of soapstone, fox fur, and seal skin (the Arctic alternative to gold, frankincense, and myrrh), I returned with a new perspective of the Canadian Arctic.

It’s an anything-but-barren landscape where the plainest basalt columns and common thick-billed murre are miraculous sights. 

Nick Dauk was a guest of Adventure Canada.