Breaking the ice

I'm travelling now with fellow journalist Maria Maggi from Italy and researchers Zheng Shaojun and Chen Zhihua from the Oceans University of China, who I meet up with in Inuvik.

This morning our journey hits a snag - it's too foggy for us to fly out to the Amundsen for the first part of the day so we wait at Inuvik airport for about six hours.

Apparently the large amounts of open water around the ship at this time of year can lead to fog. But in Inuvik after a cloudy start it's bright, sunny and around 10 degrees C. Tomorrow brings the solstice and the town will be hosting a half-marathon that kicks off at midnight, making full use of the current 24-hour long daylight.

Jim from Aklak Air, a company owned by the Inuit community, stows our bags inside the Twin Otter, carefully avoiding the glass window in the floor which can be used to take pictures through during aerial surveys.

And then we wait.

When it finally comes round, the trip out to the Amundsen is amazing. As we head further north, there are fewer and fewer trees as it becomes too cold for them to thrive. The landscape looks increasingly barren before finally becoming bare rock near the coast. We see the ice that's still in place along the coastline before flying out over a stretch of open water to get our first glimpse of the Amundsen, moored in ice in Franklin Bay. A few hardy scientists are visible out on the ice nearby.

Earlier in the year planes could land next to the ship but the ice is now too thin for that. So we head to a bleak gravel airstrip at Cape Parry. The strip was built to service a DEW station - part of an early warning radar system set up during the cold war. There's basically nothing there other than a runway and the DEW station hidden behind a hill. The wind makes it feel pretty chilly even though it's about 3 degrees C.

From the airstrip the Amundsen's helicopter whisks us to the icebreaker in just a few minutes. It's great to meet the 40 scientists on board at their nightly planning meeting and to sample the ship's excellent, and much commented on, carrot cake. And it's the first time I've been able to see ice and seals from my bedroom window.