Northwest Passage: In the Footsteps of Franklin

For four centuries the Northwest Passage was the prize of Arctic exploration, and the sounds between the islands of the Canadian archipelago still hold the graves of Franklin’s men on Beechey Island. Ultramarine enters from the east: the Davis Strait, the fjord-cut east shore of Baffin Island, then Lancaster Sound and the channels of the Passage itself, where narwhal, beluga and bowhead whales gather at the ice edge and musk ox graze the Devon Island plateau. Her two helicopters open the glaciers and tabletop mountains from above, and the return south takes in Sam Ford Fjord, whose granite walls rival Yosemite, before the West Greenland coast and disembarkation at Kangerlussuaq. Seventeen days, with every flight across the Denmark Strait included.

Quark has sailed the Passage longer than anyone, and Ultramarine is the ship we suggest to guests who want its glaciers from the air. We plan it with you: which of the two sailings, which cabin, how the flights from Australia fit the charters from Reykjavík, and the offers we hold for Arctic Cruise guests. One Australian specialist, from the first conversation until you are home.