Cold Waters: My Ship Adventures in the Arctic, Antarctica, and North Atlantic

By Raymond Malley

Persons interested in the cold ends of the earth will be fascinated with this book by Raymond Malley, a semiretired US senior diplomat and industrial executive. As a child, he became enchanted with Baffin Island and the Arctic. Later, he visited them and was so smitten that he then spent years exploring the Arctic, the North Atlantic, and Antarctica on shipsa Russian icebreaker, a German container ship, German and Norwegian cruise ships, and a French luxury cruise yacht, usually accompanied by his wife Josette. This book contains notes and reflections from his travels and adventures. Read about cold and icy waters, violent storms, icebergs, glaciers, mountains and valleys, and abandoned whaling stations. And read also about those who live therehumans, polar bears, walrus, penguins, whales, and others. His writing is crisp, frank, and revealing, and well worth a read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543466515

Raymond Malley

About the Author With grit and hard work, Raymond Malley forged his way to senior positions in the US Foreign Service, serving for thirty years in Asian and African countries and in Washington DC. He was also an Air Force officer in the Ready Reserve during the Korean and Cold Wars. Subsequently, he held executive positions with a global Korean industrial manufacturing group. Born in Massachusetts of French Acadian parents, he graduated with honors from US and European universities, including the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He holds various awards and is listed in Whos Who. He and his wife Josette, retired from the World Bank, live in Hanover, New Hampshire, and McLean, Virginia. They write, lecture, and teach part-time. He is also a ranked international senior tennis player.

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Copyright © 2018 by Raymond Malley.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2017917610

ISBN:                     Hardcover                       978-1-5434-6652-2

                               Softcover                          978-1-5434-6653-9

                               eBook                               978-1-5434-6651-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 01/29/2018

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Contents

Preface

Maps

A. Visit to Hudson Bay and Newfoundland on the French ship Le Levant, Harvard Alumni Association and Tour Company Travel Dynamics, August 1999

B. Visit to Greenland, Baffin Island, and the Northwest Passage, on the Russian Icebreaker MV Lyubov Orlova, Tour Company Marine Expeditions, Summer 2000

Photo Gallery 1

C. Visit to Antarctica, on the German ship MS Bremen, Company Hapag-Lloyd, Winter 2002–2003

D. Visit to Chile and Antarctica, on the Norwegian Ship MS Nordkapp, Norwegian Coastal Voyage Inc., Winter 2005

Photo Gallery 2

E. Crossing the North Atlantic, on the German Container Ship London Senator, Company Hapag-Lloyd, January 2009

To my three sons—

Keith, Bruce, and Gregory—

good men pursuing interesting and productive lives.

Preface

HERE’S YOUR CHANCE, Josette said, sitting on the sofa opposite me on my big chair in the living room of our home in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the spring of 1999.

She was holding up a pamphlet from the Harvard Alumni Association titled Hudson Bay Expedition: Canada’s Newfoundland, Labrador and the Northwest Territories.

From time to time over the years, I had expressed to her my boyhood desire to someday visit Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. I had held this desire since age twelve or so, when, while babysitting for a neighbor, I noticed in their library a book describing the work of Dr. Grenfell with Eskimos (now usually called Inuit) on that island and surrounding areas. I perused this book with tremendous interest and curiosity. It would be great to go there someday, I thought, doubting that I ever would.

I reviewed the pamphlet. Indeed, Baffin Island was on the itinerary of a twelve-day cruise to take place in August aboard a new French vessel named Le Levant, beginning in Churchill, Manitoba, and ending in the French archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off the south coast of Newfoundland. The vessel can accommodate ninety passengers; the Harvard group will be about twenty of them.

And thus it began. We joined the group on the Le Levant, had a wondrous voyage including Baffin Island, and were so smitten that for years we continued with a series of additional ship voyages through the cold waters of the Arctic, Antarctica, and the North Atlantic. In the process, we kept the following notes. We hope that they are of interest to the reader.

Maps

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The Arctic

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Hudson Bay and Baffin Island

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Chile, Argentina, Falklands

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Antarctica

A.

Visit to Hudson Bay and Newfoundland on the French ship Le Levant, Harvard Alumni Association and Tour Company Travel Dynamics, August 1999

Day 1, Saturday, August 1

WE ARE OFF in midmorning to drive across the states of Vermont and New York to Toronto, where the group is assembling at the Sutton Place Hotel.

We generally follow the route of the famed Erie Canal, stopping to read numerous explanatory signs. The canal was built in the early 19th century to create a navigable route from New York City and the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. It was a huge success, greatly cutting transit costs for goods and passengers and opening vast and productive lands to settlement. It is over 500 miles long and has 36 locks. The original route has been revised in some places. Competition over the years from other water systems, railroads, and roads gradually reduced the commercial importance of the canal, but it is still vital and active today, primarily as a recreational and tourist waterway.

We sleep soundly in a motel near Buffalo.

Day 2, Sunday, August 2

WE VISIT NIAGARA Falls, both the American and Canadian sides. It is of course wondrous; I have visited it two or three times, but this is the first time for Josette. In the afternoon, we continue on to Toronto and our hotel, which is downtown, and check in.

The program starts this evening with a short group gathering and cocktail reception. The program director speaks briefly; the most important point is that we should be up bright and early tomorrow morning to go to the airport for a charter flight to Churchill where Le Levant is waiting. We have a quick meal at the hotel on our own and go to our room.

All cabins of the ship will be occupied, most of them by couples and some by singles. Our Harvard Alumni Association group totals 22, most of them couples. Our tour operator is Travel Dynamics, and the tour manager is Skye Van Raalte-Herzog. The operator also has a second smaller group with us, named Classical Cruises. We are accompanied by Harvard professor Charles Burnham and his wife; he will lecture and talk to us during the cruise. The other passengers are almost all from France, again mostly couples. The crew totals about 50, mostly French, and includes two naturalists who will lecture to all.

Day 3, Monday, August 3

WE BREAKFAST AT the hotel, board a bus to the airport, and take a charter flight to Churchill, a town at the estuary of the Churchill River on the west coast of Hudson Bay. We have a box lunch en route. Arriving, we view the elegant Le Levant at a dock awaiting us.

The area of Churchill is a vast desolate plain for as far as the eye can see, with many water inlets and scattered clumps of stunted shrubs and trees. Whales are frequent offshore. Numerous animals and birds inhabit and traverse it. Best known are polar bears—the area is often called the polar bear capital of the world. We are told that the bears are dangerous; they will sometimes track and kill humans. Do not wander the streets of the town alone. During the trip, our group will often be accompanied by men with rifles keeping a wary eye.

Churchill has only about 900 permanent residents, mostly native peoples and white Canadians. It has a frontier look. Winnipeg, the capital city of Manitoba, is more than 1,000 miles by rail to the south. There are modern cargo port facilities from which grain and other produce are exported and goods imported. There are no highways to other populated areas. In addition to the railway, the main link with the outside world is via the modest but modern airport that handles several scheduled flights a day, tourist charters such as ours, and the ubiquitous private aircraft that are so common in northern Canada.

We board Le Levant and are shown to our cabin, number 302. We settle in, then briefly explore the ship before joining the others for a walking tour of the town. It features one long paved main street with low-lying buildings and shops of various kinds and unpaved side streets with modest dwellings. Many have metal bars and barriers before doors and windows for protection against bears. Prominent in the center of town is a large multiplex building which is the social center. It contains shops, cafés, a museum, the public library, a theater, children’s play areas, and meeting rooms. We meet some native people and discuss local life. We observe beautiful Inuit ivory and other carvings in the museum.

We end at a small restaurant for a wonderful meal featuring what?—bear meat! Then we return to the ship for a long sleep.

Day 4, Tuesday, August 4

THE TOWN HAS a flotilla of buggy vehicles specially designed to traverse the tundra and other terrain. This morning, several of them take our group north across the river to a windy, barren peninsula on which is located Prince of Wales Fort, a national historic site of Canada. The British and French vied for this part of Canada over generations. Both constructed forts for military use and as fur trading centers. This massive one was built primarily of stone by the British about 250 years ago. It no longer has military or trading functions but is maintained by Parks Canada and is a popular tourist attraction.

We are divided into French- and English-speaking sections for briefings from Parks Canada guides and visits to the fort. We opt to go with the French section, and Josette has a verbal encounter with an older and rather silly French lady.

Our guide, resplendent in his uniform, is giving us a very interesting briefing at the fort’s entrance in normal French Canadian language, which is pronounced somewhat differently from