![]() Tomorrow, they will host over a thousand disparate souls from this floating mini city. The people of Ulukhaktok have spent days, and in some cases months, readying themselves and their village for the Crystal Serenity. But another sort of preparation is also underway, and people are bustling around town right now. It’s the end of August, picking season here and the locals are gathering berries to store for winter. This is the Crystal Serenity-a pale leviathan of luxury, a floating Las Vegas, the first of her kind to sail through the Northwest Passage, and the first of her kind to bridge the worlds of Arctic fantasy and fact.īelow us, the copper-colored ground is fractured by rivers and creeks, and coated in berry bushes and moss. The icebreaker’s wake is like a roiling carpet, unfurling to welcome a novel visitor: the really big white ship that we’re fixated on. We all watch, with our eyes and through lenses, as the dwarfed red figure of the icebreaker RRS Ernest Shackleton cuts a straight line to our destination, the coastal community of Ulukhaktok. The unlucky, those without a view of the island and the Amundsen Gulf thousands of meters below us, pass their cameras and phones over they want a record of the historic event playing out below us. ![]() But today, the plane is full, with a mix of lecturers, expedition guides, researchers, and locals. I put my forehead to the glass, feeling lucky to have a window seat as we descend to the western shore of Victoria Island, the second largest island in Canada, the eighth largest in the world-a rare destination for outsiders. The ship cruises into view, framed through the window of an airplane. Novem| 2,600 words, about 13 minutes Share this article ![]() Photo by Elaine Anselmi Cruising into the Arctic’s Open Arms As sea ice changes and the Northwest Passage becomes accessible, a luxury cruise ship descends on the small community of Ulukhaktok. At a lookout on the north edge of Queens Bay, an expedition guide takes photos of two passengers in front of rock pilings overlooking the mouth of the bay that houses the Northwest Territories hamlet of Ulukhaktok and, for 24 hours, the Crystal Serenity.
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