Amid uncharted seas, will homegrown Arctic tour company Cruise North Expeditions sail or sink? By Aaron Spitzer
On a sunstruck morning among Nunavut’s Lower Savage Islands, in a cove resplendent with icebergs, a young ringed seal plays hide-and-seek with the tourists. Like a puppy, coy yet pure-hearted, it slips beneath our Zodiac motorboat and resurfaces just metres from the bow, appraising us with moist, bashful eyes. After three days at sea between Arctic Quebec and Baffin Island, this is the first time passengers off Cruise North Expeditions’ Lyubov Orlova have been nose-to-muzzle with a seal. Not so for our polar bear-monitor, Bruce Qinuajuak of Akulivik, Quebec, who’s seen plenty of them. Amid the flashbulbs Bruce sits wordlessly, his thoughts masked by Inuk stoicism and cool shades. But when the woman beside him nods at his rifle and asks jokingly if he’s tempted to shoot the seal for dinner, Bruce’s lips peel back in a fabulous grin. “Yes,” he says. “Really tempted.”
That evening in the ship’s galley -- over a dinner of oriental chicken, not seal -- I laughingly relate Bruce’s comment to my tablemates. Bad move: Pursed mouths and withering glares chill my soup. It’s as if I’d killed the seal myself. A stooped matron from the L.A. suburbs proclaims, “I couldn’t eat anything so cute.” Then a German doctor clinks down his wine glass to rail against aboriginal whaling. He concludes his tirade with: “These days, natives don’t even need to hunt.” Embarrassed, I glance around to see if Bruce is beyond earshot. He’s on the far side of the galley, looking unenthused by his chicken dinner.
**
Awkward culture clashes – indeed, head-on smash-ups between North and South – are just one of the hazards faced by Cruise North Expeditions, the Arctic’s first aboriginal-owned cruise line. Though, some might call these hazards opportunities. The company, launched three years ago by the Quebec Inuit birthright corporation Makivik (which also runs the airlines First Air and Air Inuit), aims not only to make money for Inuit shareholders but to serve as an ambassador for Inuit culture. When I ride along on Cruise North’s flagship 10-day cruise through Hudson Strait, during the company’s sophomore season of operation, it’s clear these twin goals were ambitious and extraordinarily noble – and sometimes, glaringly at odds.
Tricky currents, of course, are nothing new to Cruise North’s president and co-founder, Dugald Wells. When I first meet him in the cramped Kuujjuaq airport, as he greets passengers arriving from Montreal, he seems the very archetype of a Northern CEO: tall, trim, ruddy-cheeked and silver-haired, and clad in fleece and a company ballcap. He speaks with the precision of an engineer, which is the line of work that got him into Arctic ice navigation and, by way of that, polar cruising. He’s also, right off the bat, disarmingly blunt, complaining that the weather’s been “shitty.” But the sky clears during our rumbling bus-tour of town, and that night aboard the ship Wells is poised and gracious, pouring Australian merlot for guests and discoursing on Cruise North’s young life.
It all started in 2003 when Wells, speaking at a conference that happened to be attended by a Makivik representative, floated the idea of a homegrown Arctic cruise line. Soon after, Makivik officials excitedly contacted Wells: They’d had the same idea. Plans went warp-speed and in January 2005 Cruise North was launched. The appeal was obvious: Polar cruising was going gangbusters, having doubled in Antarctica over the previous decade and conveying a million sightseers annually to Alaska. Yet in the Canadian North the industry seemed stillborn. In any given summer a mere handful of vessels would sail to Nunavut from far-off ports, charging exorbitant prices and carrying few, if any, Northern staff. What’s more, Inuit often viewed these cruises unfavourably, accusing them of disgorging gawkers on ecologically and historically sensitive areas and descending ambush-fashion upon villages, where residents felt compelled to pose for pictures but profited not a whit.
The solution, Wells and the Makivik Corporation felt, was an Inuit cruise line. Northerners already knew the best destinations in the Eastern Arctic. From the port of Kuujjuaq, the largest town in Arctic Quebec, cruises could be launched with shorter durations and lower costs. And the region’s surfeit of underemployed Inuit could earn wages and receive training aboard ship and in the ports-of-call. Indeed, the foundational role of Inuit in Cruise North, it was felt, would lure culture-curious guests while insuring that the company respected local communities and the environment. And of course, bottom line, there was the money. In the rarest of twists for the Arctic, corporate earnings would stay north. As Wells explains over his merlot, “When we land on the beach of some Arctic community and all the kids run down to the water, it’s pretty neat, because those kids are each part-owners of this company.”
**
A day after the seal encounter, after sailing all night, we drop anchor outside our first traditional village: Kimmirut, Nunavut, population 400. Here, I figure, Cruise North’s convictions about giving back to Northern communities will either be showcased or shot down. Beneath glowering clouds the Zodiacs ferry us from the ship up Glasgow Inlet, at the head of which Kimmirut’s weatherbeaten homes huddle in a deep, rocky pocket. The welcoming committee consists of women and men garbed in amautis and summer parkas. Among them is slight, mustachioed Paul Onalik, a part-time soapstone carver, who gathers a dozen of us for a walking tour. We tromp the muddy streets and study the limited sites – the quaint Anglican church, the spartan Northern store, the cemetery littered with boulders. It’s not much to work with, but Onalik spins gold, lecturing with smarts, patience and disarming wit on everything from the intricacies of local real-estate to the baroque tale of a neighbour savaged by a polar bear. Mentally I vote Onalik as Kimmirut’s governor-general. Then the L.A. matron, seemingly stunned by the lack of local commerce, asks him why Inuit don’t raise chickens. “Well,” he deadpans, “it’s hard to crack frozen eggs.”
Later – after throat-singing, drum-dancing and Inuit-games demonstrations, the gobbling of bannock in a traditional tent, and a hike on the land – I briefly quiz Onalik about Cruise North’s impact on the community. He and the other locals who’ve hosted and performed for us, it turns out, get a cut of approximately $5,000 the cruise line hands to Kimmirut for each of its two annual visits. Additional cash pours directly from tourists into the giftshop: The place is virtually ransacked in the rush to buy local carvings, many of which have been prepared especially for this visit. And apparently, Cruise North’s stopovers generate non-monetary benefits – chiefly, amusement. While speaking with Onalik, kids and dogs race in circles nearby, locals and Cruise North staff put on an impromptu dogsled-whip demonstration, four-wheelers growl, water-trucks honk and Kimmirummiut break out video cameras, giving tourists a bit of their own medicine. I ask Onalik what he thinks of all this. For the first time all day he seems slightly overwhelmed, but replies, “We only wish they’d come more often.”
**
If Cruise North appears successful in providing ports-of-call like Kimmirut with respectful tourism and a little bit of cash, the company’s onboard accomplishments are, so far, more ambiguous. One of the outfit’s key mandates is to train and employ Inuit. On that count, depending who you ask, they’re either succeeding or flopping. Aboard my voyage just six of the 55 crew and expedition staff are aboriginal. Almost all are newbies in low-rung roles: kitchen help, “hotel” maids, and bear monitors like Bruce Qinuajuak, who function as sentries to protect guests from dangerous wildlife. And some of these six probably won’t last the whole summer. Cruise North has had challenges retaining its Inuit employees, who -- stressed out or bored by nautical life, and longing for friends and family – often jump ship mid-season.
Dugald Wells, the company president, makes no bones about this problem – indeed, frustration creeps into his voice when he discusses it. But, he notes, his cruise line is a young outfit, and success is relative. Six Inuit on staff is, after all, six more than on most Arctic cruises. Further, he points to an expected doubling in Inuit employees for the 2007 season, and to training and recruitment efforts being launched in Nunavik villages which, he says, will go a long way toward giving the company a truly Inuit face.
The Inuit face Wells wants, I suspect, is that of Jason Annahatak. The only Northerner with a real speaking role on my voyage, Annahatak is a precocious 25-year-old from Kangirsuk, clean-cut, earnest in the extreme, with the robin’s-egg eyes of his Quebecois father and the deft Inuktitut fluency of his native mom. He’s the voyage’s “Inuit culture specialist,” presenting evening lectures on topics ranging from ancient legends to polar politics. He contacted Cruise North about this job while teaching in France; after the season is over he plans to go to the Ivy League’s Columbia University in New York City for a master’s in psychology.
The evening after the visit to Kimmirut – a grim, wave-lashed night along Baffin Island’s Meta Incognita Peninsula – Annahatak gathers the passengers in the forward lounge for a primer in basic Inuktitut. After discoursing on the linguistic complexities of the tongue he launches into a practice session. “OK everyone,” he says, “let’s try the word for ‘thank you’ – nakurmiik.” Variations of the word echo from the mouths of the several-dozen assembled tourists. “Once more,” he says, indefatigable. With the wind gathering outside the ship is beginning to roll, and as I repeat my “nakurmiiks” I begin to feel a bit ill. Yet I notice that Annahatak – standing before the wide-eyed throng, aboard a heaving vessel at once in his homeland and yet wildly removed from it, seems remarkably steady on his feet.
After the lecture, when I share this observation – this metaphor, really – with a non-Inuit staff member, he nods gravely. “Yeah, people like Jason are the future of this company,” he says. “I just hope we can keep him.”
**
On the next-to-last day of our voyage, as passengers are beginning to reflect back on the expedition and anticipate their return south, we make a sun-drenched Zodiac landing in the prettiest place we’ve been: Douglas Harbour, a splendid Nunavik fjord where 450-metre walls frame a shimmering green finger of the ocean. After stumbling ashore at the head of the harbour we traipse into a vast field of Arctic cotton. It’s there that one of the Inuit guides notices a small herd of caribou – the first we’ve seen. Suddenly, the quiet, compliant Inuit are in charge. They commence a march toward the distant herd, trying to insure that straggling passengers don’t fall from sight, and that the over-eager ones don’t charge too far ahead. “Don’t go so fast or you’ll scare them off,” Bruce Qinuajuak warns in a hushed call. “And they’re frightened of colours, too.” He’s animated, alive, stalking the caribou – doing what he loves to do. After many minutes we’ve crept to within half a football field of the animals. Photographers fire off snapshots; other of the passengers study the caribou through binoculars or simply stand back and absorb the whole sweeping scene. Finally the herd gets anxious and trots away. One of the passengers turns to Bruce and jokes, “Looks like they’re scared of white people.” Bruce laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “You all look like a polar bear to them.”
Hours later, steaming back toward home port in Kuujjuaq, our dinner party is gathered in the galley discussing what we liked most about the journey. A travel agent form Paris is emphatic: the visits to the Inuit communities. Another passenger agrees, but also notes her infatuation with Jason Annahatak’s presentations about Inuit culture. At that point, a lady from New York pipes up and says, “There’s just one thing I haven’t figured out. Are their any real Eskimos left?” Across the galley, Bruce and Jason are engaged in a discussion, partially in Inuktitut, partially in English, about who-knows-what: the NHL draft, or Jason’s graduate-school plans, or maybe even caribou hunting. I turn back to the New York lady, despairing at the challenge that still lies before Cruise North. “They’re right there,” I tell her. “The real Eskimos are right over there.”
