Author Marian Botsford Fraser begins her 11-day voyage on The Walrus’s chartered expedition through the Canadian Arctic

On September 12, authors and journalists and contributors to The Walrus joined The Walrus Expedition for a fourteen-day voyage in the Canadian Arctic aboard the Russian icebreaker Lyubov Orlova. The expedition—in partnership with Adventure Canada—is a fundraising event for the charitable, non-profit Walrus Foundation and is a part of The Walrus Arctic Project. Also onboard is Franklyn Griffiths, author of the essay on Arctic climate change in the special Arctic issue of The Walrus, published in November 2007. The Walrus Expedition begins in Resolute—very close to the Magnetic North Pole and very near the graves of some of Franklin’s men. As the ship continues down the coast of Baffin Island, stopping in Pond Inlet and other communities, and with a stop in Greenland, you can follow along with here at The Walrus Blogs until the expedition ends in Iqaluit on September 24.

THE LYUBOV ORLOVA, BAFFIN ISLAND COAST—Flying boats: Remember good airline food? When certain major airlines (maybe not since Wardair in the early 90s) prided themselves on serving stuff that was edible, even delicious. Then it was that the northern run of a certain national airline had the worst food imaginable, but now even that standard is no longer met in the south. In the north First Air rules, even in an aging 737 almost overfull (it feel as if there are more passengers than seats and aging weary crew who are obsessed with Transport Canada rules and a good thing too. Did you know that you must never ever speak to a flight attendant during take-off and landing, because they are mentally reviewing their duties? Did you know that if the pilot or co-pilot comes out to use the loo that the purser must stand guard in front of the cockpit. .…

Back to food: smoked salmon or maybe arctic char, with pumpernickel, sour cream, capers, lemon and a sprig of dill. An omelette apparently made from real eggs, with asparagus, potatoes, sausage, steak and tomato; fruit and yoghurt and croissants and more than 100 suddenly alarmingly full people and two bathrooms. Even on the little ATR that a dozen of us must take from Iqaluit to Resolute, to lighten the payload on the big plane by about 2000 pounds so it (are planes shes?) can land on the short gravel runway at Resolute, three kinds of beer and cold rare steak.

This 737 is the last jet that can land on gravel and in the Arctic there are several key airports, Resolute especially, that are gravel. It has a little ski, right under the nose that sends the gravel flying outwards during landing instead of sucking it up into the engines. It has long narrow engines instead of the new, fat round ones and I am not sure why this matters. But what matters is that this rather old plane is no longer made. When it dies, what large plane flies to Resolute? Or will Resolute, now that the Canadian government sniffs political meat in the old-fashioned notion of arctic sovereignty, finally be paved?

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Zodiac rules: Suddenly, in Resolute, it feels like winter. The wind is cold, the sky a shiny grey. The bay at Resolute is littered with debris and the decomposing carcasses of a narwal and a beluga. The zodiacs are impatient as we are the last to board the ship.

How do you approach a zodiac? In a skinny little life jacket that looks like a tightly rolled scarf that happens to have a buckle that snaps right on your chest. If these ever hit the water they instantly blow up in to recognizable flotation devices, we are assured. Then with your bottom, swinging both legs up and over and you’re in, hanging on to a very casually slung rope, and one another.

The zodiacs look like fat black down pillows with 60 horse power motors. Inscrutable young men in wraparound shades and smooth rubbery helmets and bright yellow and red parkas stand straight and perfectly balanced at the tiller. They are aiming for the gangway, a wobbly set of stairs crawling up the side of the ship. It is Day One. People step gingerly.

The Lyubov Orlova is a ship built in Yugoslavia in 1975, registered in Malta, about three hundred feet long, 100 or so passengers, 70 or so crew. The crew is Russian—broad, silent men and fair-haired women who smoke a lot. It is their ship and they can smoke on the bridge, even in their cabins, so to go up on the bridge is to enter a 70s Russian movie. The air is literally blue.

* * *

This is a plain boat with old-fashioned upholstery and fringed brocade curtains in the bar. No black tie captain’s dinners and ballroom dancing and casinos on this ship. No shopping for diamonds, but possibly shopping for furs. A Russian ship seems appropriate in the Arctic.

Lyubov Orlova was a famous actress, the “national actress of the U.S.S.R. Her photographs decorate the bar; she has the aura of a cross between Mata Hari and Greta Garbo; sometimes moody, austere and blond, then coquettish and comic, and then in sequins and feathers and long black gloves. She shares the wall in the bar with the photograph of a polar bear drinking from a stream, and from a table, a small carved seal, with a human face, looks at them both with alarm.

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Posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 10:23 am. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.