‘Do you live here all year?’
Nunavut community invaded by largest cruise ship in Arctic history
If the looming 10-storey ship in the distance didn’t tip off Cambridge Bay that Monday was going to be different, the swarms of retirees in identical red jackets would have.
“Do you live here all year?” is the most common question asked by passengers of the Crystal Serenity, followed closely by “what’s the winter like?” (Answers: “Yes” and “cold”)
It’s all part of the largest invasion in the history of this Nunavut hamlet.
Cambridge Bay has been a stopover for passing ships since the days of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. But on Monday, the community saw 900 people zodiac-ed into their 1,500-person community in only a matter of hours.
“There’s some quiet grumbling from people, but mostly with humour; ‘there they are, walking all over the road again,’ ” said Vicki Aitaok, the community’s cruise ship co-ordinator.
“People are pretty good natured, we haven’t gotten any ‘we don’t want you here,’ ” added Aitaok.
In fact, for many locals, the oneday arrival of the largest cruise ship to navigate the Northwest Passage has proved to be an excellent opportunity to make a buck.
Artists have come in from nearby settlements to join locals hoping to score the sale of a carving or a wall hanging.
Although, as the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association told the
Nunatsiaq News, the average cruise ship passenger only spends $75 — meaning sellers will be competing for a pool of about $67,000.
Other locals have signed up to take work as guides, caterers, cultural representatives and security.
“Mark your calendars! Lots of jobs available,” read one announcement on a Cambridge Bay Facebook page.
The effect is that, for a few hours on Monday, the Crystal Serenity effectively rented Nunavut’s fifth largest community.
“They seem to be everywhere you look,” one resident told the National
Post, adding “it doesn’t seem to bother anybody.”
Of course, being at the halfway point of the Northwest Passage means that Cambridge Bay has a mercifully short summer tourist season. To avoid getting trapped by encroaching ice, there’s only a 10-day window in which a ship without a strengthened hull can safely visit the community. In a 32-day voyage, the Crystal
Serenity is running the Northwest Passage from west to east. Starting in Anchorage, Alaska, the vessel has scheduled stops along the Canadian Arctic coast and a final destination in New York City.
For much of the voyage, the luxury vessel will be carrying the largest theatre, largest swimming pool and only sushi restaurant to be found for thousands of kilometres.
The unprecedented voyage obtained the blessing of the Nunavut Impact Review Board, who weighed that the ship’ s sewage out flows would have no serious impact. Although the ship was advised that “interactions with polar bears should be avoided if at all possible.”
Just in case, the Board also recommended that “guides carry 12 gauge shotguns, with the ability for non-lethal deterrents and lethal rounds.”
Notably, the ship is being escorted by the icebreaker RRS Ernest
Shackleton, a vessel operated by the British Antarctic Survey.
The British vessel is an insurance policy for a voyage that has often been described by travel writers with the word “dangerous.” In 2010, for instance, the much smaller cruise ship Clipper
Adventurer ran aground during a Northwest Passage trip, necessitating a rescue of its 100 passengers by the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen.
There are no deepwater ports in Nunavut, so the 250-metre long ship had to anchor offshore and ferry in its passengers by zodiac to an area outside of Cambridge Bay known as “gravel pit.”
Stepping past two red-serged Mounties posted at the beach, the visitors waded into a “culture camp” of dancers and singers.
From gravel pit, visitors can then pile into a menagerie of hired cars and vans to journey the 10 kilometres into town. There’s a food fair at the high school, an arts and crafts festival at the community hall, and an open house at the Anglican Church, with guides posted at key corners to point wanderers in the right direction.
And as with all Nunavut tourists, many will inevitably slip into the local Northern Store to gawk at the expensive food.
“Almost every local business is involved some way or other; either by their transportation or catering or providing products or services,” said Aitaok.
Meanwhile, as the town core flooded with sightseers, ship’s crew ferried a delegation, including Mayor Jeannie Ehaloak, hamlet councillors and the aforementioned Mounties, to be feted inside the ship’s marble rotunda.
Just a few weeks ago in the waters off Cambridge Bay, Norwegian salvage crews successfully floated the
Maud, a ship brought to the area by Roald Amundsen.
The wooden hulk, dry for the first time in 85 years, is a reminder that Cambridge Bay’s choice location along the Northwest Passage has made it a travel hub since the days when only kayaks plied these waters.
Cruise vessels have been dropping in on the community for almost 25 years, with the rate spiking dramatically in recent years due to melting sea ice. Five ships will drop in on the community this year, compared to the one or two that trickled in only a decade ago.
Until now, aside from the occasional private yacht or sailboat, the hamlet has been visited almost exclusively by “expedition ships”; high-end charters staffed with expert lecturers and filled with wealthy Arctic-philes. But with the arrival of the Crystal
Serenity, Cambridge Bay may now join the likes of Victoria, Quebec and Halifax; Canadian towns flooded by an annual tide of giant ships disgorging fanny-packed tourists for a few hours at a time.
With this, the community is also getting its first taste of the run-ofthe-mill cruise vacationer: Greyhaired, mildly flummoxed and not necessarily coached up on the local geography. What one outraged U.S. writer called the “world’s worst people.”
But Cambridge Bay, along with an earlier port of call at Ulukhaktok, N.W.T., genuinely seemed to appreciate the visit.