As we sailed by Disko Bay on Greenland’s west coast, I woke to a persistent, muffled crunch. The root of all of the ruckus: floating disks of pancake ice strewn throughout a pastel sunrise-tinted sea.
The frozen surroundings was a results of the Ilulissat Icefjord—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—that’s fed by the Sermeq Kujalleq, one of many world’s quickest flowing glaciers. We had simply reached the second cease of Viking’s inaugural Northwest Passage crusing, a 12-night roundtrip journey break up between Greenland’s west coast and the Canadian High Arctic.
As I peered out from the retractable window in my Deluxe Nordic Balcony cabin, I couldn’t assist however liken the surroundings to Wilhelmina Bay in Antarctica, an expedition I joined with the cruise line two years earlier. Just three days into this crusing, I had already overheard a number of different passengers swap related Arctic versus Antarctic comparisons, and swiftly got here to study that almost all of my fellow vacationers had booked this journey following an excellent Antarctica journey with Viking.
“Traveling into the Northwest Passage itself is inherently thrilling,” says Aaron Lawton, Viking’s head of expedition operations. “This legendary route has captured the imagination of explorers for centuries, and experiencing it firsthand brings that history to life.”
The alternative to go to one among Earth’s most remote polar regions—not to mention each—is a current phenomenon for leisure vacationers. The southern Antarctic and northern Arctic had been traditionally accessible solely by explorers, who then paved the way in which for researchers, and had been adopted by rugged expedition vacationers. Then got here the rise of luxurious polar-class vessels just like the Viking’s Polaris and Octantis expedition ships, which might concurrently navigate thick ice sheets whereas swaddling its passengers with the comforts and facilities of a five-star resort.
For years, although, luxurious cruise traces have supplied much more choices within the Antarctic than the Arctic, largely due to lack of port infrastructure, air connectivity, and mercurial climate. In 2024, 87 cruise ships handed by the Arctic Polar Code space versus the 58 cruise ships recorded in 2013, in accordance to Arctic Ship Passage Data (ASTD). The stark enhance over a decade remains to be considerably under the statistics of its south pole counterpart, the place the 2023-2024 season witnessed 569 voyages and over 117,000 passengers, in accordance to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO).
Eight nations comprise the Arctic, and although some have lengthy been widespread cruising locations, just like the circumnavigation of Iceland or crusing the Norwegian fjords, vacationers’ ever-growing obsession to journey off-the-beaten-path have drawn operators additional north. When the Nuuk International Airport opened on the finish of 2024, Greenland formally emerged as an embarkation hotspot for luxurious and expedition traces together with Viking, Ponant, HX, Silversea, and Quark.
As polar fanatics take into account the brand new array of Arctic sailings on supply, vacationers ought to perceive that whereas the 2 polar areas share some similarities, after all, an Arctic cruise is far completely different from an Antarctic expedition. Mainly: the Arctic’s panorama varies from rugged, lichen-covered rock face to incomprehensibly-sized icebergs. Antarctica largely presents a constant, frozen tundra. In the Arctic, the excursions are culture-centric, whereas Antarctica guarantees days stuffed with wildlife.
“In the Arctic, encounters with Inuit communities in places such as Greenland or the Canadian Arctic add a powerful human dimension to the experience,” Lawton says. “These interactions provide cultural context that deeply influence our guests’ understanding of the region.”
In the 91-person settlement of Itilleq, Greenland, for instance, we joined locals for morning espresso and cake in a ritual referred to as kaffemik, a convention sometimes held for birthdays or particular events. Crossing over to Canada’s Arctic archipelago and landed in Nunavut, the traditional lands of the Inuit, an elder led us by an exploration of Inuit music by way of seal-hide drum as the subsequent technology showcased native sports activities just like the One Foot High Kick. And on Nunavut’s Beechey Island, we had been the one individuals on the gravesite of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin’s three crewmen—a fragile archaeological website we had been solely allowed to entry thanks to Viking’s onboard archaeologists (made all of the extra genuine due to an impending snowstorm).