We wanted to visit Iceland, both to see the country and also to catch up with Denise’s cousin and his wife. The (multi) thousand dollar question was whether to take the 917 camper or not. There is a weekly ferry from Denmark to Seydisfjordur on the eastern coast of Iceland. The trip takes two nights and, on the return, there is an obligatory stop in the Faroe Islands for two days. And so, of course, we reviewed the blogs of two friends who made the trip in 2015. (https://archive-travelin-tortuga.com/europe/europe-2015/icelandic-sagas.html and https://www.whiteacorn.com/posts/trip/rtw/150625) All of this would have taken longer than time available this year, so we decided to take a ship, with Viking, which would visit Canada, Greenland and Iceland, and we could take extra time in Reykjavik to meet up with family.

The beginning of the cruise moved from New York to Boston because the Tall Ships were taking all the docking space in New York. This was a celebration of the July 4 holiday. We took advantage of the pre-stay and spent two nights in Boston before joining the ship. The hotel was well placed by the Harbor Walk and we enjoyed early morning strolls along it, viewing the historical information panels along the way and admiring the views of the city a little further away.

We even got to enjoy being on the sidelines of an Indian style wedding! Lots of color, fun and, of course, drums!

We have been to Boston on several occasions (Fred went to university there) and, as it was very hot, we decided to take a hop on hop off bus to renew our memories.

Boston was gearing up to celebrate the 4th and we felt sorry for the costumed re-enacters who looked very hot indeed!

Departure day arrived and we were bussed to an old style pier. Unlike modern cruise ports, which look like airports, this brought back memories of the ’50’s when they simply cleared a space among the crates and dropped a gangway.

The embarkation took a while, it always does, but it did seem a bit disorganized. We managed to sort it all out and went to lunch to find it absolutely jammed and nowhere to sit. We had to sit outside, which was a little warm, but we survived. (First world problem!) And, when we reached our cabin, it looked lovely.

Canada

Our first stop was Halifax, which we had not visited on our previous trip to Nova Scotia.

Double decker buses had been provided for our transit needs so we took an early one and started out at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairview_Lawn_Cemetery), one of three cemetaries where a number of named and unnamed victims of the Titanic disaster are buried. Halifax is linked to the Titanic disaster as it was the closest major seaport and was the base for many of the recovery efforts.

After wandering the cemetery, we took another bus to the main part of town, before heading down towards the waterfront Boardwalk.

Our goal was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, a fascinating museum. (https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca) The museum had the obligatory exhibits on the Titanic, of course, but it also covered the less known, in the United States, at least, ammunition ship explosion of December 1917, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion)

The visit normally includes the CSS Acadia, but she was still undergoing renovations. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Acadia ) Continuing down the Boardwalk, we came to HMCS Sackville. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Sackville)

Fred was thrilled – not only is the Sackville a Flower class corvette, but she was the digital model for the Canadian corvette in the movie “Greyhound.”

She is of a similar vintage to the oiler on which Fred cruised as a midshipman and her anti-submarine gear was similar to the equipment at Fred’s NROTC unit. (Fans of the history of anti-submarine warfare are welcome to reach out for endless discussions of a subject the most people ignore!)

We continued by sailing up the coast of Canada to L’Anse aux Meadows, site of the first Norse settlement in the Americas, by Leif Eriksson about 1001. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows) Recent archeological digs have proven that the Vikings did indeed make the crossing from Greenland to the Americas, probably in search of wood. There was little forest left in Iceland and none at all in Greenland. Dwellings have been reconstructed and the Viking way of life explained.

Click on images for slide show.

Consider an interesting idea. If, as believed, all human life began in Ethiopia, and then spread east to Europe and west to China and, across the Bering land bridge, to America, then this may have been the first time that the eastern and western branches of humans re-encountered each other. Today the year around population is under 40.

Greenland

And on to Greenland after a wonderful day on a glass calm sea. Unlike some, we thoroughly enjoy sea days!

The two towns we visited in Greenland, Qaqortoq and Nanortalik, were both small. Really small. Each had a small museum which provides insights into Viking, Inuit, and Danish history. The houses are all painted bright colors, perhaps as a response to the dark winter and often cloudy summer.

Most of the current population is Inuit who live from fishing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit) The weather was wet and foggy. Despite the weather, there is increasing income from tourism as ships make it easy and comfortable to visit. At least in the summer.

During the Second World War, Greenland was hugely important for air bases for both antisubmarine patrols and emergency landings of aircraft being ferried to England, and harbors for convoys, their escorts, and ice breakers. After the war, the United States maintained several bases in Greenland, now down to one. Greenland is part of the GIUK gap, (Greenland/Iceland/UK) a natural choke point for Russian submarines attempting to enter the Atlantic.

The Qaqortoq Museum, formerly a Royal Greenland Trading Post, dates to 1804 and is the oldest building in all of South Greenland. In the summer of 1933, scouting transatlantic air routes, Charles and Ann Lindbergh spent three weeks in Greenland and one of their stops was the southern town of Julianehaab, now known as Qaqortoq. we visited a reconstruction of a room where the couple stayed.

Our next stop was Nanortalik and it was even wetter. In fact we got soaked during our visit! But that did not stop us from exploring the tiny hamlet. The good news was that the infamous Greenland midges did not like the rain any more than we did!

We have been to a lot of places, in many counties, and have always prided ourselves in our adaptability. Here, in Greenland, we had a tremendous feeling that life is REALLY hard and precarious. History records that the Vikings arrived during a warm period and basically abandoned Greenland when the temperatures dropped. We felt a sense of isolation that we never felt in, say, Sahara towns. We were surprised, as we have always considered ourselves very flexible. But Greenland is not on our list of retirement sites.

Leaving Nanortalik, we sailed the fabulous Prins Christian Sound channel.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Christian_Sound) Only passable in summer, it provides an alternative to the often stormy waters below Cape Farewell. (See the mentions of the sinking of the Hans Hedtoft.) Fans of Alaska’s Inside Passage will love it as it provides amazing sights of waterfalls, glaciers coming down to the fjords and narrow passages. Very dramatic and spooky on a cloudy day. We watched one of the glaciers calf icebergs and even saw some whales.

Bluie East One was a weather station located at the entrance to the Prince Christian Sound near the southern tip of Greenland. It was built by the US military during WW2, for the purpose of providing weather data. It remained in use for the same purpose after the war, and is jointly run by the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Tele Greenland today. It is now totally automated, but back in the day, people had to climb the hundreds of steps up to the antennae on the mountain top.

Back in the Atlantic again, we sailed a day of flat calm seas to Northern Iceland.