The End of the Nuuk to Nome Northwest Passage Journey: September 7, 2026
Updated: Oct 12
September 3 through September 6 were "at sea" days. Not my favorite as to me "at sea" means gray days. On our first at sea day the day began with bands of sea ice and a little light snow in the morning. Overnight, the ship churned through sea ice. In contrast to what the earlier Northwest Passage explorers encountered on their journeys, this is the most sea ice we've encountered since entering the Northwest Passage. We had sun in the afternoon.
Two polar bears were spotted. The first would be on the starboard side as the ship neared the bear. We waited on our balcony and eventually saw the bear running across the ice and caught his photo just before he jumped into the sea. I saw him swimming away from us but he was just a dot in the water.
Around 3:00 pm we passed into Alaska/US waters. Another polar bear (#10) was spotted starboard side, but it was at quite a distance and didn’t see it.
September 4 began as a nice day with quite a lot of sun, but very cold and windy. I woke to large sheets of sea ice. In the afternoon we had two polar bear spottings. The first was port side, on the sea ice, and quite far away with fog.
The second one was on the starboard side and at a reasonable distance for my lens. It was also sunny. The yellow tinted fur is caused by microscopic algae picked up in the fur when swimming. Polar bear hairs are translucent which allows the heat from the sun to reach the skin. Their skin is black and absorbs the sun's heat. The bear's coat has both guard hairs and underhair which traps the heat and retains body heat. The fur appears white due to reflected white. Male bears can weigh up to 800 kg/1763 lbs and females up to 500 kg/1100 lbs. A bear standing measures up to 3 m/9.8 ft.
In the evening we left the Northwest passage behind and about 4:00 am we passed Point Barrow, Alaska, which is the northern most point in the US.
On September 5 we left sea ice behind.
September 6 was cloudy and windy and cold. No bears and no whales. Also, it was so foggy that it was impossible to see any distance.
Around 4:00 pm in the Bering Strait the ship passed close by the two Diomede Islands. One is the Russian island of Big Diomede (part of Chukotka). The other is the U.S. island of Little Diomede (part of Alaska). They are in the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia. At their closest point they are about 3.8 km/2.4 miles from each other. The International Dateline runs between them which means that Big Diomede is 21 hours (20 hours in the summer) earlier than Little Diomede. In the winter they are often connected by an ice bridge.
In 1948, the Soviet government relocated the indigenous population of Big Diomede Island to mainland Russia. The island is now inhabited only by military units. Little Diomede had an Inupiat population of 170, which had declined to 115 at the 2010 census, entirely in the village site of Diomede, Alaska on the west side of the island. During the Cold War the separation was known as the Ice Curtain (Wikipedia).
Our visibility was so poor that we had no chance of spotting Little Diomede.
At 6:00 am on September 7 we arrived in Nome. Two hours later we were transferred to the airport. The dock in Nome was muddy and the airport very small. After going through security, the flight waiting room is smaller than the size of a doctor's office waiting room. Sadly, we didn't get to see any other part of Nome. We flew to Anchorage and then Seattle. Home on September 8.
The MS Fridtjof Nansen crew, the expedition team, kitchen and housekeeping staff were competent, helpful, friendly, and very clever. A cruise is really the only way you can comfortably journey through the Northwest Passage. HX Expeditions
The End.
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