A Trail of broken ice to the top of the world

The last couple of hours were in "back-and-ram" mode. Engines astern, back a few hundred yards, then all ahead full! Three giant screws, driven by 75,000 hp nuclear-powered turbines slammed our ship headlong into thick, translucent blue ice that broke into pool-table sized slabs and tumbled and rolled under our bow 125-feet below our vantage point in the bridge. Other passengers observed from the forward deck below. Our eyes shifted back and forth between the GPS display and the icy chaos all around us. The screen showed 89 degrees, 56; 400 feet to go. Another back, another ram, and another, and then, slowly, slowly, the numbers climbed through 57 minutes, then 58, then 59, then 59.5, 59.6… and finally stopped at 90 degrees, 00.00 minutes north latitude. There were cheers and popping champagne corks! There was no longer any east, west, or north. From here, south is all there is! The big red Russian icebreaker "Yamal," with upwards of 200 passengers, staff, and crew had come to rest on top of the world! It was July 21 at 9:30AM (Greenwich Mean Time).

With the engines stopped (no use dropping the anchor-the ocean is 14,000 feet deep under the ice here), crews used cranes to lower tables, chairs, and provisions (liquid, solid, hot, and cold), and music systems for dancing on the polar ice. Down the gangway came a half-dozen riflemen, who headed for icy hummocks with good views, setting flags along the way to mark cracks, leads and other places unsafe for walking. They carried rifles because big white bears are always hungry. Other staff members cut blocks of ice into counters for the serving of refreshments. Drinks would not get warm while sitting on this bar! They set up tents for those who wished to camp out, and dug a swimming pool through the ice to the arctic ocean below. They planted a flag to mark the north pole because nothing was there when we arrived, with or without barber-stripes. It is a moveable target anyway. The polar ice cap drifts a mile or more a day, and a couple of "days" later, when the crew started the ship's engines and we backed out of our ice-locked mooring, the GPS showed that we had drifted about three miles.

The ice glistened under the polar sun, and the 40-degree (F) air was still. Hand in hand I strolled with my trophy-wife of 49 years through 24 time zones (always counter-clockwise around the pole in order to cross the international dateline into yesterday and thus get a day younger). Others joined us, somebody turned on the music, and around it we all danced, walked, or otherwise cavorted, in a big circle. Then the barbeque began.

When the festivities died down, many of us wandered amongst the pressure ridges under the watchful eyes of the bear-police. We took rides in the 20-passenger Russian helicopter that operated off of the flight deck on the aft end of the ship. Once aloft we were free to open the big oval windows and stick our heads and/or cameras out for clear and commanding views.

There were sign-up sheets for swimming, but alas, the pool could not be kept clear of refrigerator-sized chunks of floating ice, so the swimming had to be cancelled. (Drat!!) Those who elected to spend the "night" in tents on the ice found the event more like sleeping in a sauna than camping, because in the summer the sun does not set at the north pole. It just goes around the horizon, never higher, never lower, for all 24 hours. That is how the old-timers could tell that they were at the pole, before there was GPS.

Our cruise began in Murmansk, which is one of Russia's most important ports because ships can reach it during most of the year. I still remember the black-and-white newsreels of my youth, showing merchant ships draped with ice moving slowly into port during the Great War, when America transported vital supplies and materiel to Russia under the "Lend-Lease" program. Hearing Edward R. Murrow intone the word "Murmansk" made me shiver. The word itself has chilled me ever since.

But it was not particularly cold in Murmansk when we embarked on Yamal, only a bit dreary and rainy. The city is a port of military importance, and a base for nuclear submarines and other warships. Security did not seem obsessive, but we were asked not to take pictures until we got on the ship. Photographing things or people on the decks of Yamal was ok, and if background accidentally showed up in our viewfinders, well, nobody seemed worried about that. One might be asking for trouble by leaning over the rail and pointing cameras shoreward, but the place is not especially photogenic anyway, and I did not feel deprived of a chance to take prize-winning photos. US State Department warnings about foreign travel indicate that a handheld GPS unit can be a problem in Russia, however. I don't know how serious that is, but decided not to bring one anyway.

Yamal was not designed to be a cruise ship, but is a comfortable ride nonetheless. Once the season for tourist-cruising is over, she returns to her workaday function of keeping the shipping lanes open across the northern coast of Siberia. The Russians routinely use icebreakers to escort and sometimes tow cargo ships through the Northeast Passage (along the northern coast of Russia from Murmansk to the Bering sea). In contrast, there is not a lot of traffic in the fabled Northwest Passage that stirred the blood and took the lives of many explorers in the times before Roald Amundsen finally accomplished it in 1908. It not only took him 3 years, but once he had done it, nobody could figure out how to make a profit out of doing it again. Until expedition cruising came along, that is.

Our cruising days went by too quickly, in large part because Quark Expeditions who runs these icebreaker cruises, has a world-class staff of experts in history, geology, birds, beasts, and fish, who give slide illustrated talks once or twice a day. These talks are geared to persons of all educational and professional backgrounds. Translators are provided for non-English-speakers. The passenger list consisted of about one-third Americans; the rest were Japanese, Belgians, Swiss, Austrians, and other Europeans, and Australians and Brits.

The lecture room is comfortable, but is on a lower deck in the forward part of the ship, which meant NOISY! when we were in the ice. Talks could get hard to hear. At such times, the speaker simply looked at the ceiling, whistled softly through his/her teeth, and rocked gently back and forth on his/her heels for a minute or two until the sound level dropped sufficiently for the lecture to continue. Sometimes there was a really wonderful CRASH! followed by a ship-wide shudder. Not to worry, though. Yamal is not the Titanic, and the Russian captain and crew have many years of experience in this stuff. Then there might be some loud "whooshing" from the "bubble machine." The latter has nothing to do with Lawrence Welk. It comes from big tanks from which compressed air can be released explosively through vents near the ship's keel to lubricate passage through ice. The captain also has the capability to shift massive amounts of water ballast fore-to-aft and side-to-side, making the ship shift and squirm. Ramming and bashing, fuming and squirming on a 21.000-ton ship is an experience not soon to be forgotten, but it does not make the footing as wild as it sounds.

Passenger quarters are much quieter than the lecture room, and we found the grinding and whooshing restful, although sometimes the "crashes" woke us up, along with "bear-calls" from the ship's PA system.

The dining room (with open seating so people get to know each other pretty well by the end of the voyage) is roomy and pleasant, with superb European-style cuisine, a fine wine list and any kind of mixed drink. The kitchen staff is Austrian, and the dining hall and housekeeping staff Russian. The cocktail lounge is a bit weird though. There is a tiny bar at one end of a passageway that stretches athwart-ships, with chairs along the wall. One gets one's drink and a handful of peanuts at the bar, and then finds one of these chairs, preferably between two interesting companions. It is reminiscent of queuing up for license plates in some municipalities, except you don't have to take a number.

It is not especially cold on deck and there are lots of sheltered spots in sunshine. For chilly times and walks on the ice, Quark issues everyone a bright yellow parka, which may be taken home after the voyage. We spent a lot of time on deck or in the Bridge (where visitors are always welcome, so long as they don't get too noisy), looking for wildlife and watching ice blocks the size of cars and small trucks tumble along the sides of the ship. Crashing into a solid expanse of ice slows progress appreciably until a "lead," or crack in the ice starts somewhere ahead and gradually opens as the ship pushes the slabs apart. The course is a bit zig-zaggy, deflected by the direction taken by the leads. You can record hours of video tape of this stuff. When you get home, nobody but you will want to watch more than a few minutes of it. Trust me. There is just no way that video can replicate the experience.

Sometimes there are walrus (it is amazing how many of them can haul up onto a small slab of ice at once) and whales, especially orcas, narwhals, and belugas, which show themselves mostly as disturbances in the water. And seals, but they are hard to spot because they are the meals of choice for polar bears, and hiding is their only defense.

The prize of all wildlife sightings is the polar bear, and he will rarely be shy. His main interest is in cute furry animals to eat, but a big ice-breaking ship is usually excites his curiosity as well. Come to think of it, maybe it is food-smells (us) that draws him near. The viewing works both ways; the bear will sit on the ice and look up at the people who are looking down at him, then get up and walk or swim around the ship, amble off, then think better of it, and come back and look and sniff some more. All the animals keep irregular hours, and may show up at any time of day or "night." They are worth getting out of bed and running down stairways and gangways for. It is always best to keep a camera handy. No flash is required.

Getting to the north pole was a novelty, and the delightful silliness of the polar festivities soon subsided. It is the voyage that counts, after all, and if the voyage takes one to a unique place like the pole, so much the better. Homebound, we paused among the many islands of Franz Josef Land, and strolled through carpets of glorious arctic flowers and explored ruins of past expeditions, abandoned outposts, and forlorn graves that mark misfortunes of early explorers. Our ship paused within a few feet of tall rocks that jut from the sea and provide nesting places for thousands of seabirds. This magic land provided not only gentle decompression from our polar experience, but an exclamation point at the end of a special journey that we will remember always.

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