Expedition Northwest Passage (West-East Route) - Arctic Epic With The Hanseatic Inspiration

It is hard to believe that a place as beautiful as Seward exists. Surrounded on all sides by Kenai Fjords National Park, Chugach National Forest, and Resurrection Bay, Seward offers all the quaint realities of a small railroad town with the bonus of jaw-dropping scenery. This little town of about 2,750 citizens was founded in 1903, when survey crews arrived at the ice-free port and began planning a railroad to the Interior. Since its inception, Seward has relied heavily on tourism and commercial fishing. It is also the launching point for excursions into Kenai Fjords National Park, where it is quite common to see marine life and calving glaciers.

In 1906, Roald Amundsen navigated the entire Northwest Passage for the first time. Now you, too, can tackle this pioneering feat on board the HANSEATIC inspiration. The first chapter of your adventurous weeks start on the coast of the Alaska Peninsula. As you cruise off Kak Island, the cliffs teeming with birds will stir up your anticipation of what lies ahead. Chignik means “strong wind” in the Alutiiq language. Gain an insight into life in this small fishing town, which has around 80 residents. The volcanic island chain of the Aleutian Islands stretches into the Pacific like a great arc.

Chignik is a fishing village on the Alaskan Peninsula and home for just under 100 year-round inhabitants. Most of the houses in the community are connected by a boardwalk that fringes a local stream and neighborhood kids can be seen riding their bicycles back and forth on its length. In the summer months the population doubles, as the fishing gets better and the town supports a couple of fish-processing plants. Chignik is a remote outpost at the doorstep of the Aleutian Island chain and offers up a true taste of Alaskan outback life.

Here you’ll visit Popof Island, where bison roam the land and bald eagles rule the skies. Your gaze will instinctively be drawn upwards when you hear their call above Unalaska Island. The settlers in Dutch Harbor looked to the heavens for different reasons, as can been seen from the oldest Russian Orthodox church in North America with its white towers topped with onion domes.

A colony of northern fur seals might welcome you as you hike with your experts on Saint Paul Island – a taste of the intensive encounters that await you with the diverse fauna of this remote region. As you cruise through the Bering Sea, keep a lookout for whales from the excellent vantage point offered by the many open deck spaces.

The city of Saint Paul is located on a narrow peninsula on the southern tip of St. Paul Island, the largest of five islands in the Pribilofs. These islands are located in the middle of the Bering Sea between the United States and Russia. St Paul’s lies 240 miles north of the Aleutian Islands, 300 miles west of the Alaska mainland, and 750 air miles west of Anchorage. The city of St. Paul is the only residential area on the island. The first non-natives to ‘discover’ St. Paul were Russian fur-traders in the late 1780’s, led by the navigator, Gavriil Pribylov. Today, this small city has one school (K-12), one post office, one bar, one small general store, and one church, a Russian Orthodox Church that is registered National Historic building. In summer, this island is teaming with wildlife, including about 500,000 northern fur seals and millions of seabirds, including tufted puffins

Just like rich experiences have drawn you to this region, it was gold that was the magnet in Alaska in the early 1900s. The town of Nome is still shaped by the gold rush of bygone times, with disused steam trains, tracks and gold dredges.

Nome is located on the edge of the Bering Sea, on the southwest side of the Seward Peninsula. Unlike other towns which are named for explorers, heroes or politicians, Nome was named as a result of a 50 year-old spelling error. In the 1850's an officer on a British ship off the coast of Alaska noted on a manuscript map that a nearby prominent point was not identified. He wrote "? Name" next to the point. When the map was recopied, another draftsman thought that the “?” was a C and that the “a” in "Name" was an o, and thus a map-maker in the British Admiralty christened "Cape Nome." The area has an amazing history dating back 10,000 years of Inupiaq Eskimo use for subsistence living. Modern history started in 1898 when "Three Lucky Swedes”, Jafet Lindberg, Erik Lindblom and John Brynteson, discovered gold in Anvil Creek…the rush was on! In 1899 the population of Nome swelled from a handful to 28,000. Today the population is just over 3,500. Much of Nome's gold rush architecture remains.

The excitement on board grows as you cruise through the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea and draw nearer to the lifelong dream and magnet for countless adventurers and explorers ...

The adventure of the Northwest Passage: to this day, fascinating legends surround this famous waterway. To start your adventures, the rarely visited Herschel Island sets the scene. If the local conditions permit, you can explore the former whaling station. With a little luck, rough-legged buzzards will herald your arrival and the timid Arctic fox might even make an appearance. Franklin Bay is enveloped by the history of Franklin the explorer and the phenomenon of the Smoking Hills. The smoky effect is caused by layers of rocks within the hills that contain pyrite and have ignited themselves. A Zodiac ride offers unique perspectives of this mystical spectacle.On Victoria Island, named after the British queen, you might have the chance to see mighty musk oxen weighing up to 400 kg (882 lb). Will you perhaps even see polar bears here? Look forward to amazing insights into the way of life and history of the Inuit. For centuries, the area around Cambridge Bay was the summer meeting point for the “Copper Eskimo” families – named after their copper tools. The wreck of Roald Amundsen’s research ship Maud bore silent witness to his bravery from its resting place in the ice here for around 90 years before being taken back to Norway in 2018. Depending on the ice as well as the local conditions, you will witness a historic moment: the meeting of the HANSEATIC inspiration and the HANSEATIC spirit expedition ships. The extraordinary rendezvous will be celebrated on deck and, according to old nautical custom, be accompanied by the sounding of the ship horns. A great voice echoes on Jenny Lind Island, which owes its name to a Swedish opera singer from the 19th century lovingly known as the “nightingale”. You may find yourself surprised by four-legged residents such as Arctic hares, Arctic foxes and caribou.As the ship cruises in Victoria Strait, the dramatic scenery will reflect the moving history of this area. For a long time, the lost ships of the Franklin expedition, which tried and failed to find the Northwest Passage in 1845, were thought to be at the entrance to the strait. One of them, the Terror, was discovered in 2016 in Terror Bay, around 100 km (62 mi.) further south than expected. Find out about the fate and the unflinching courage of those who braved the forces of nature back then from your experts on board. The conditions will decide whether your adventure continues by cruising in Peel Sound – the ice sets the pace as the HANSEATIC inspiration manoeuvres safely through the island labyrinth to its next destinations. Very few ships are capable of this feat, which requires first-class equipment and an experienced crew. Zodiac rides and landings are possible throughout the habitat of whales, seals and polar bears. For example, Prince of Wales Island invites you to hike through the untouched nature. Follow in the footsteps of past explorers on Beechey Island. A walk to the graves of members of the Franklin expedition will bring its historic significance to the fore. The world’s largest uninhabited island, Devon Island, welcomes you with its vast wilderness. An abandoned station of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reinforces the impression of remote silence. As the ship then sets sail from Lancaster Sound for Greenland, you’ll have completed the feat and be among the few people who can say they have conquered the Northwest Passage.

The final chapter in your adventure takes you along the west coast of Greenland. Small but perfectly formed, Uummannaq nestles at the foot of a spectacular heart-shaped mountain. The splendid Jakobshavn Glacier near Ilulissat is the “birthplace” of around 10 % of Greenland’s icebergs. Marvel at the glistening ice masses that gather here with a hike to the ice fjord. This is followed by an amazing natural spectacle: in the glittering splendour of Disko Bay, mighty icebergs drift majestically through the water – an event that you can watch unfold around you from the deck and in a Zodiac. Sisimiut provides an atmospheric end to your expedition, with its houses dotted across several hills. Almost an entire month filled with milestones of seafaring history lies behind you now – the experiences of a lifetime and wonderful memories will stay with you for years to come.

The name Kangerlussuaq means "Big Fjord" in the local Kalaallisut language. The settlement of about 500 people is located in western Greenland on flat land at the head of a fjord with the same name. Kangerlussuaq is the site of Greenland's largest commercial airport and most of the economy here is dependent on the air transportation hub and tourism. The rugged lands around the settlement support terrestrial Arctic fauna including muskoxen, caribou, and Gyrfalcons.

The city of Zurich, a global center for banking and finance, lies at the north end of Lake Zurich in northern Switzerland. The picturesque lanes of the central Altstadt (Old Town), on either side of the Limmat River, reflect its pre-medieval history. Waterfront promenades like the Limmatquai follow the river toward the 17th-century Rathaus