Inuit Cruise Line’s Inaugural Northwest Passage Trip

The world's only Inuit owned and operated cruise company embarks on its inaugural trip through the Inuit homeland of the Northwest Passage this Friday, August 28, 2009.

During the years of early exploration, explorers would rely on Inuit, who have been living along the passage for centuries, for guidance, companionship, fresh meat and other supplies. Now, Inuit are continuing this practice, by guiding passengers from all over the world through this historic waterway.

Tracing the legendary trading route first navigated by Roald Amundsen in 1903-1906, Cruise North’s Northwest Passage voyage begins in the High Arctic’s Resolute Bay and travels through the Canadian Arctic archipelago.

In this land of true polar desert, passengers follow the routes of the intrepid explorers, going only where the ice permits, for even with the effects of climate change, ice reigns supreme. The itinerary calls for exploration of the waterway, along with historic sites left as they were abandoned more than a hundred years ago, including Beechey Island, Victory Point, Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, Bellot Strait and Prince Leopold Island.

Cruise North Expeditions passengers travel in comfort and safety aboard the ice-class rated 122-passsenger ship, the Lyubov Orlova, in the capable hands of a first-rate expedition team, accompanied by historians, naturalists, ornithologists and Inuit guides and elders.

Note: Cruise North Expeditions is a subsidiary of the Inuit-owned Makivik Corporation of Quebec, a highly successful investment corporation born of the first modern-day Aboriginal land claim settlement agreement in Canada (the JBNQA of 1975). Makivik also owns the well-respected First Air and Air Inuit.