A rough year for ice ...

Ice in Resolute Bay

2018 will go down as a rough year for ice in the eastern Canadian Arcric, particularly along the classic route of the Northwest Passage that so many who sign up for adventure cruises seek most keenly. It's been both an obstacle -- forcing the re-routing of numerous ships -- and an active threat; in the worst instance crushing and sinking a yacht (the French-flagged "Anahita") near Fort Ross on the eastern end of the Bellot Strait. And, as in previous years, a very large and heavy plug of it has rendered the area around the Victoria Strait impassable by nearly any vessel short of a heavy icebreaker, cutting off the legendary "last link" and preventing completion of any planned transits of the Passage. Indirectly, by forcing the re-routing of larger vessels such as One Ocean's Akademik Ioffe, the ice also may have played a role in her running aground on what was apparently an uncharted shoal or submerged rock.

Canadian Ice Service chart for 27 August 2018

Is it an unusually bad year? Or were the past few seasons unusually favorable? It's hard to say with absolute certainly, even though the Canadian Ice Service regularly provides a chart showing where the concentrations of ice are higher or lower than historical conditions. Their estimate requires 30 years of data to make, and thus doesn't stretch back very far, as comparable data is unavailable much further back than that. Still, the most recent chart offers some insight into the overall trend; just as it was last summer, this year's ice concentration in the eastern Arctic was higher than the historical norms, while in the western Arctic it was significantly lower. The areas of higher concentration were also problematic; at Resolute, ice in the bay prevented the zodiac landings needed for passenger/staff turnover aboard larger vessels; in the Bellot Strait, even ships with an icebreaker escort ended up turning around; in the Victoria Strait, neither the hoped-for pilgrimage to Victory Point nor a visit to Gjoa Haven seemed likely for any vessels entering from the east -- the ice was simply too dense.

Some who misunderstand the way ice forms and melts, or don't realize how complex a system it forms with land, winds, waves, and currents, may scoff at warnings about climate change and a warming Arctic -- not realizing that, even as warming puts more thermodynamic eneregy into the north, such energy can readily propel ice -- by speeding the calving of bergs off glaciers, increasing winds and currents, and pushing ice more densely together -- making conditions worse rather than better.