Northwest Passage Cruise 2026

Situated close to the southwest corner of Devon Island with Viscount Melville Sound nearby.

Great ship cruising in a location close to where Lancaster Sound splits into a myriad of channels that made the exploration of the northwest passage so challenging.

The location on King William Island, where some of the men of the Franklin expedition created a summer camp in the summer of 1847 for magnetic observations.

By late December 1847/January 1848, the officers and men left the camp in a hurry and headed back to the ships. The site as ‘discovered’ in 1859 by the McClintock expedition searching for evidence of Franklin’s Expedition, finding artifacts.

The island (the 61st-largest island in the world and Canada's 15th-largest island) and the surrounding area was the region where the Erebus and Terror ended up.

It is now known the two ships became stranded in 1846 when frozen in the sea ice northwest of the island. After abandoning the two ships, most of the crew died from exposure and starvation as they attempted to walk south near the western coastline. Two of Franklin's men were buried at Hall Point on the island's south coast. It wasn't until June 29, 1981, that researchers finally had luck. A team led by Canadian archaeologist Owen Beattie, found 31 pieces of human bone fragments on the southern tip of the island, called Booth Point. On September 9, 2014 the Victoria Strait Expedition located the wreck of HMS Erebus. The HMS Terror, was found in 2016 in Terror Bay, off the south-west coast of King William Island.

The area also played an important for the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen on the expedition through the Northwest Passage, spending nearly two years with his ship on the SE coast at what is now known as Gjoa Haven. The island is separated from the Boothia Peninsula by the James Ross Strait to the northeast, and the Rae Strait to the east. To the west is the Victoria Strait and beyond it Victoria Island. Within the Simpson Strait, to the south of the island, then the Adelaide Peninsula, part of mainland Canada. Queen Maud Gulf lies to the southwest.

Situated on the SE coast of Victoria Island (the 8th largest in the World), and the largest community on the Island. As well as the community focus there is the history of the area

The first Europeans to reach Cambridge Bay were overland explorers led by Thomas Simpson in 1839; searching for the Northwest Passage and crossing the sea ice to Cambridge Bay by foot. Another overland expedition was led by John Rae who reached Cambridge Bay in 1851. The first ship to reach the bay was HMS Enterprise under Richard Collinson who wintered there in 1852/53. Both Rae and Collinson were searching for Franklin's lost expedition.

Fort Ross is an abandoned former trading post on Somerset Island. First established in 1937 by the Hudson's Bay Company, it was only operational to 1948, as severe ice conditions in the surrounding waters made the site hard to reach and economically unviable.

It is interesting to visit a Hudson’s Bay Company hut and to contemplate the location. It is situated at the eastern end of Bellot Strait on a south-eastern peninsula of Somerset Island, a key location in the northwest Passage. Also good for a rage of high arctic species.

On Ellesmere Island (10th largest in the World) and the most northerly community in Canada. In Inuktitut it is called Aujuittuq—”the place that never thaws”.

It is the only ‘public’ community on Ellesmere Island, created in 1953 by the Canadian Government with a relocation of Inuit families from Inukjuak, Quebec. It is also one of the coldest inhabited places in the world, with an average yearly temperature of −16.5 °C (2.3 °F). There is an airport, but even today it can be a challenging place to land, or even get ashore by Zodiac from a ship.

The Location of the HMS Terror, (discovered in 2016) off the south-west coast of King William Island.

Curiously the name is coincidental, but it is a sheltered location suggesting the ship was sailed into the location, rather than drifting here. It is located in the south-western side of King William Island, the entrance to the bay marked by Fitzjames Island to the west and Queen Maud Gulf to the west, and Irving Islands to the east. Queen Maud Gulf is between the northern coast of the mainland and the south-eastern corner of Victoria Island.

This island is in a key location in Lancaster Sound at the junction of Prince Regent Inlet and Barrow Strait, off the northwest coast of Somerset Island. It has some really impressive and steep seabird cliffs that is one of the most important sites in the Canadian Arctic and a bird sanctuary.

Also good area to look for marine mammals and other Arctic wildlife.

Located at the mouth of the Coppermine River in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada, on the southwest side of Coronation Gulf, southwest of Victoria Island.

It is the westernmost community in Nunavut, near the border with the Northwest Territories. There is an airport and Kugulutuk is a location where small expedition ships may drop and pick up passengers before or after a trip through the northwest Passage (rather than a longer trip right through the Bering Strait).

Good place to see a range of 'high' Arctic birds typical of this remote part of Canada.