Our voyage with the Canadian Icebreaker continues….and comes to an abrupt halt after lunch, when the ice sheets ahead are too thick to plough through, despite some brute force being applied…the course is altered and we gratefully follow in the wake of the ‘Pierre’….we reflect on the expeditions by the British in the 19thC, who had to ‘winter over’ on a number of journeys when their sailing vessel had become stuck in the ice….and died.

The challenges of the north are many: darkness (Oct-March); ice cold; 80% reflectivity; katabatic (descending) winds from glaciers and ice caps, eg 100 knots; white out; glare and snow blindness; self sufficiency; isolation and psychosis; and dehydration.

We are travelling in near white out conditions, the horizon barely being visible with ice floes surrounding us that are both ‘first year’ and multi year’ layers…..an eerie and a dream-like landscape as we crunch through…..before us is the vast unknown; all around us is silence and solitude.