Whale watching in Jøkelfjord Nov 15 2026

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on a Whale Safari tour with Destination Tromsø, where my friend C. works as a guide. I wasn’t sure whether I would see any whales, but the weather looked to be great and I wanted to see the snowy mountains from the sea until it gets too dark. The tour is long, since the whales follow the herring and are currently east of Skjervøy, which is about 120 km away from Tromsø. At half past eight we are setting off and shortly later we cross Tromsøbrua, the bridge to the mainland.

The next three and a half hours we are travelling. We follow Grøtsundet northeastwards, turn into Ullsfjorden with the island Reinsøya on the port side and the Lyngen on the starboard side. The sun has risen and more and more of the snowy mountain tops turn into deep orange colours.

In the north lies the island Nord-Fugløya, which always looks impressive, especially when the sun is low. The photos don’t do the light justice.

In the south, on the northern tip of the Lyngen, lies Lyngstuva, a lighthouse where I spent a summer night some years ago. Then I had 24 hours of daylight; today it is four.

Kågsundet comes next – a narrow sound between the islands Arnøya and Kågen. Then we pass Skjervøya with the Hurtigruten port Skjervøy. Here the whales were some years ago, but year after year, the herring continues to move further eastward for reasons unknown.

We pass the island Splidra and in the west I see the prominent silhouette of Kvænangstindan.

Then we enter Jøkelfjorden. The first thing I spot is not any whales, but the huge number of ships. A sailing ship, some other tourist ships, several RIB boats, kayaks and there are even some snorkellers in the water. They all want to see the whales. And there they are, a pod of orcas. They have been around here for a couple of days.

The deck is crowded. Everyone wants to see these beautiful animals, or at least the parts that are above the water.

Sometimes I think that I would like to snorkel here as well, but I know that it stresses the whales and so I won’t do it. Standing on deck on a pretty silent boat feels less intrusive. Most tour operators are respectful and some of them have their own guidelines to protect the animals. Unfortunately, there are some others who don’t give a sh*t. So, please choose your tour operator wisely.

We stay there for a while until the orcas leave. And so do we, but in the opposite direction, heading back. Then we get a message that another boat has spotted a minke whale. We approach the area, slow down, wait and really – there it is. We only see it briefly and, as is often the case, only see a bit of the back and the dorsal fin, but while I have seen orcas, I have never seen a minke whale before.

I made the photo of the minke whale at 13:10. That’s ten minutes before sunset. This means that it will be dark for most of the return journey. I am outside to take some photos several times, but mostly I stay inside, chatting, eating, checking the photos on my laptop, drinking coffee and taking a nap.

Around 5 o’clock in the afternoon we are back in Tromsø. After being on the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon for three weeks in October, just two weeks ago, it was nice to be out on the sea again, if only for a day.

Fram Strait – this and that Nov 1 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

Just some random images. Some of my own that I haven’t use yet, one not taken by me and some more from the last days.

15 October – the moonpool

If you have ice around the ship, it is good to have a moon pool, a vertical shaft inside a ship to give access to the sea. Here you can deploy CTDs without them being crushed by ice floes on the way up. Today temperatures got into double digits – in the negative range – and the surface of the moon pool has been freezing. The CTD itself is somewhere in the water below the ship, but no CTDs were harmed.

Every day – the food

If you are on a cruise with the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon there is a good chance that you gain weight. The meals are outstanding and sometimes the lunch provides more variety than a normal restaurant has on the menu. And then there are the Saturday dinners with steak and vegetables and potatoes and gravy. Now I’m flying back to Tromsø and that’s good, because one another week on the ship and I would just burst while eating.

25 October – clearing the ice

Sometimes the sea ice is welcome, for example for an ice station. Sometimes it is very unwelcome, for example for the recovery or deployment of a mooring, a “Christmas tree” of instruments on a long cable anchored in the ground and usually staying untouched for a year. Several times we had to change plans, because the ice was too compact and thick. However, sometimes we used the icebreaker to push away the ice, building an ice-free pool round the mooring’s location. That can look pretty funny on the navigation screen, where the ship’s track is displayed.

26 October – ice station

One day later there is an opportunity for another ice station; the tenth and last on this year’s Fram Strait cruise. I fly the drone again. Lia Lechler (UiT) from the sea ice team makes this nice photo where I am just about to start sending the drone up to an altitude of about 80 metres.

Me starting the drone (Photo: Lia Lechler, UiT)

27 October – it clears up

It was not easy to find a window to fly the drone the day before, because it drizzled for a long time. But today there is a clearer day in our cruise’s roller coaster weather. It looks like a sunrise or sunset but it is neither, because it is polar night and the sun stays below the horizon all day long.

30 October – arrival in Longyearbyen

After doing measurements in Kongsfjorden we do measurements in Isfjorden today. After dinner we have our expedition de-brief. Shortly after the last of 98 CTD casts is finished and we steam to Longyearbyen, where we started the expedition 17 days ago. Then it’s time to go out, feel the ground under our feet, walk to town and grab a beer.

31 October – rainy

The town looks quite dull, because it has +7 °C – much too warm for the season – and the snow in the valley has melted. It is raining.

longyearbyen-lataLongyearbyen in late October IIe-october-2

1 November – travelling back

Today it has become a bit colder and the rain turned into snow. Good for Longyearbyen, bad for our flight, which departs with a delay of 35 minutes. There are at least 16 people from the cruise on board this airplane and I cross my fingers that everyone gets their connecting flights, whether they go to Norway, France, Denmark, or in Scotland.

And if I get my flight, I’ll be back in Tromsø at 20:55.

I got it :-)

Kongsfjorden Oct 29 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

29 October

Yesterday we were on the open sea; last night we approached the coast of Svalbard. When I wake up, our position is 79° 2′ N / 10° 41′ E, about 15 km north of the northern tip of the island Prins Karls Forland. I can see the mountains, not through the scuttle (my cabin has none) but on channel 303 of the ship’s TV system.

When I go out right after breakfast, everything is foggy, but two hours later it has cleared up and for the first time in more than two weeks I see land again.

After lunch we have already taken the three westernmost CTD casts of our planned Kongsfjorden transect. Now we are heading east into the fjord. I’ve never been here before and I’m happy that the weather is clear. So I stand on the helicopter deck as I have done countless times before, but this time I am not alone. Most of the other cruise participants and some of the crew are standing outside enjoying the views of this extraordinary landscape, too.

To the right in the south lies Ny-Ålesund, a settlement that provides facilities for research activities to 19 institutions, among others the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Further and further east we go. We seem to skip a CTD station or two. Or all? It turns out that we first go all the way east to the glacier front of the glacier Kronebreen to use and enjoy the daylight and then do the CTD casts back west thereafter. For about two hours I stand outside and take one photo after the other. The others also take pictures with everything between a mobile phone and a large system camera. I use my Nikon D750 and three lenses – 24–70 mm, 70–200 mm, and 150–600 mm.

I am happy to experience this arctic landscape today, but I am also sad. I know that the human-caused climate change will change these landscapes drastically and that I probably belong to one of the last generations that can see glaciers calving into the fjords of Svalbard.

At around 2 o’clock we have reached our easternmost position. According to the ship’s navigational system we are south of the mountain Colletthøgda. According to the map service TopoSvalbard there is no open water south of Colletthøgda but the glacier Kronebreen. I’m afraid, the ship’s navigation system is right and the glacier has retreated a lot. The change has long begun.

I take some pictures in the early afternoon as well. The next photos are taken between 14:45 and 15:30 and you can see how dark it already is. The sun will not rise here before mid-February next year.

Around 19:50 – I am about to lose a card game – our cruise leader comes into the day room. She tells us that she has spotted a fog bow. Again I go out onto the helicopter deck – and it is still there. A flat, pale bow with the moon as a light source. I have seen a fog bow in daylight on another cruise two years ago, but never a lunar fog bow before. Pretty cool! Thank you, L.!

More ice stations and back to the open water Oct 26 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

22 October

After a day with drizzle and bad visibility, there is another ice station, starting around 78° 50′ N, 6° 15′ W. The first part is interrupted soon, because a polar bear shows up, forcing the sea ice team to go back on board and wait until this specimen of Ursus Maritimus has walked away far enough for the team to go back onto the ice.

After lunch I can go onto the ice for another drone flight. It is this flight that will teach me something about drone flying on the ice. It is cold, but everything goes fine. After flying I take a selfie and go back on board the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon. I enjoy the sun and take some photos from the helicopter deck.

When I get the first result of the orthomosaic – stitched together from more than 200 photos – I experience a surprise. The photo is – well – chaos. Perhaps because I added a wrong image? But the second and third attempts are not better.

Was it the GPS? Other sensors? What happened? To make it short: It was the drift of the sea ice. It was 0.4 knots this day, which does not sound extreme. Nevertheless, it is a drift of about 12 metres per minute and that adds up, when drone flying takes half an hour. Over the next two days I use some of my time to write a script to compensate for the drift by reading the position of the ship (which drifts together with the ice). And with this drift compensation, the orthomosaic creation finally works well:

23 October

Another day with an ice station. The ice team has it tough today with temperatures around -17 °C and a wind speed of more than 10 m/s. At the same time, it gets darker each day. Yesterday there were around three hours of daylight; today it is less than two and a half. Tomorrow it will be eighty minutes and then there will be polar night for almost four months.

In the afternoon I take another drone flight from the ice. Brrr! That’s cold. The second photo shows my caps and balaclavas drying – I wore them all, one above the other.

Cold weather stuff – everything was needed

24 October

For all those interested, we got a tour through the machinery spaces by maskinsjef B. I have a deep respect for the crew members working with these complex systems and who know so much about every technical facet of this icebreaker. I do not even try to tell you anything about it because I do not have the slightest clue about any of these components. Thanks for the great tour, B.!

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, something strange happens – we are leaving the ice behind. The boundary between the marginal ice zone and the open water is like being cut with a knife. When I am on deck, it is already too late to see this cut. We have been in the sea ice for more than a week and I have grown accustomed (and fond) to it.

But it’s not for long; we return into the ice only hours later.

25 October

Some shots taken in the evening.

26 October (today)

Today we have the last ice station. It is pretty dark, the visibility is far from brilliant and it is drizzling. I get a message from A., who has discovered a rare guest in this region – a snowy owl sitting on an ice floe nearby. This is the best shot I get of it from deck 3.

A snowy owl on an ice floe in the Fram Strait

To my delight it clears up after a while and the drizzle has stopped. My last chance to go out on the ice again to take a series of drone photos for the sixth orthomosaic of this cruise. Despite the damp weather, the results turn out to be surprisingly good. (And yes – I used drift compensation again, because here we had a drift of 0.6 knots, which is 30 cm a second.)

Kronprins Haakon in the drift ice for the last ice station

In the afternoon, while I am playing table tennis with two researchers, we leave the ice again, this time for good. The rest of this week we will spend in open water (it’s fun to play table tennis in a ship that is slightly rolling) and continue with one of the main fields of this cruise that I haven’t mentioned yet: conducting CTD casts to measure Conductivity (and so salinity) and Temperature at different Depths. The oceanographers have already conducted 49 CTDs over the last two weeks and there will be many more. But that’s another story to tell.

Daily weather changes and another ice station Oct 21 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

18 October

Oh, what lovely weather we have on the ice station. After I have done my job, I take the opportunity to take a photo from the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon by drone.

Ice Station on the starboard side of RV Kronprins Haakon

That was 13:00. Six hours later, the weather has changed. It is snowing and the crosswind on the helicopter deck is so massive that I do not dare to step out more than one metre. I take a shot to the front and a very blurred selfie and go inside again.

19 October

As predicted, the weather has become worse. When I am on the deck again after lunch, wind speeds have increased to something between 22 m/s and 28 m/s and the temperature has dropped to -8 °C. So I take the selfie in the wind-protected hangar.

But I am in a luxury position. Most of my work here is computer work, done in the heated Conference Work Room. Others have a much tougher job. They are recovering a mooring. Although the cable is one of the shorter ones, it takes around two hours until the mooring is recovered, because the elements keeps tangling up the cable. This is outside work on deck 3, with overalls, helmets, balaclavas and goggles in storm conditions and wind chills below -20 °C. So, it’s not me who should complain about the weather.

Later in the evening, the weather becomes even more severe, with wind gusts above 30 m/s and temperatures dropping below -10 °C. A very good time to stay inside even when taking photos. So I take photos through the windows from the bridge. On the starboard side, the storm batters the ship with snow. On the port side, the snow swirls in all possible directions.

Snow storm in the dark – seen from the bridge

20 October

The next morning, the weather has changed again, this time for the better. It has become colder, with temperatures of -13 °C, but the storm is gone and so has the snowfall.

An ice station is planned. I will join it later, when the wind has decreased even more and it is a bit brighter outside. Although our position is -9.5° W, our ship time is Norwegian time and so sunrise is around noon. Around 10 o’clock, I stand on the ice with the drone I intend to fly. Will it work when it is still dawn?

The drone I use belongs to the Norwegian Polar Institute

Yes – it works! The ship provides a lot of light that illuminates the ice. Not only for working but also for the team on the bridge that is looking for polar bears. While their job is harder at dawn, my drone flies well, although it detects obstacles in the air that are not there.

When the sun finally rises, it is pretty spectacular. In high latitudes, it seems more to roll over the horizon than to lift up.

And the colours are incredible. The snow-covered ice floe we are in shows many colours but not white.

After lunch, the ice station is continued and have the opportunity for another flight. Some shots from the side:

Then I stayed outside to learn a bit about the calibration of the GEM2, an electromagnetic instrument that is used for measuring the thickness of snow and ice.

However, I do not fly the drone for leisure but to make orthophotos that show the ice situation from above. For that, I have to take many pictures and then – back on the ship – use both traditional image editing and special software to stitch the images together. The morning orthophoto was stitched together from 125 images, the afternoon one from 255 images. That took about an hour of processing on a fast computer.

Especially the latter photo has a good image resolution. Do you see the scientists out there with the GEM2 on a pulka sled in the photo below? It is taken from the orthophoto above.

The next day another ice station is planned.

21 October

… but never set up. First the visibility was too poor and then it was too windy. I couldn’t have flown a drone anyhow because first it was snowing and then, with rising temperatures, it was raining. So a lot of other work was done instead.

So – another ice station tomorrow? Actually, that’s planned. Tomorrow I’ll know a bit more.

A mooring, ice stations and the sun Oct 18 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

16 October

The polar bear is gone. The dinner has been eaten. Now it is time to recover F12, another mooring which is underwater and has measured a variety of values for 14 months. The ship’s echo sounder has already located it, so it has “only” to be released from the ground. There is only one issue – there is a lot of ice and to recover the mooring, open water is needed. The helmsman has already circled the icebreaker several times to create an ice-free area. When the mooring is finally released, the air-filled buoy pops up in the water, just two metres away from the searchlight. Chapeau! I mentioned in the last article the joint effort that is needed to get such a mooring with more than 1800 metres of Kevlar cable equipped with instruments from the sea onto the ship.

17 October

When there is ice, it’s an opportunity for an ice station. Again, this is teamwork. Besides the scientists on the ice, you need a polar bear guard with a rifle on the ice and three bridge watches on the bridge on deck 8 that are constantly observing the surroundings for polar bears, cracks in the ice, fog coming up, and other potential dangers. I handle the communication between the bridge and the team on the ice, and luckily nothing happens. The only thing I have to do is to keep track of the people who are on the ice.

There are my things: A bottle of water, my own binoculars (I have had them for more than 40 years), a VHF radio for communication and a notebook with a ballpen for taking notes.

I haven’t seen the sun for days, but now, while I am taking the second shift, the sun is rising from a low layer of clouds on the horizon. I can see its reflections in the windows on the other side of the bridge while the ice team works in the ship’s shadow.

For the rest of the day, I do computer work but interrupt it several times just to go outside and take some photos from the helicopter deck, which is on deck 6 at the bow of the ship. You never know how long the good weather will last. I am there while the sun is shining, I am watching the sllloooowww sunset, and I am there in the evening, when it is the ship that is illuminating the ice.

Ice on the Fram Strait, October 2026 III

Ice on the Fram Strait, October 2026 VII

I am already in bed when I see a post in our group chat mentioning Jupiter and Mars. I put my down clothes over my pyjama, put the helmet on my head and go out onto the “helideck” one last time for the day. The night is starry and there they are: Both Jupiter and Mars near the horizon, accompanied by many stars. But there are also big spotlights, which make the view somehow special. The stars are slightly out of focus, but I am showing a photo nevertheless.

18 October

Another day – another ice station. I will do the first bridge watch and then go onto the ice myself to fly a drone. Around 10 o’clock, the team enters the ice.

Two things are certain on an expedition with the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon. All meals are on time. Everything else may and will change. This time, it is a crack in the ice that I observe. I inform the team on the ice. I have to give several updates, because more and more cracks appear. After less than half an hour, both the team and their equipment are safely back on board, and the ice station is aborted. Between the first and the last of the following photos lie 18 minutes.

After lunch – the second try. I may join the team in the beginning, because, although the conditions for drone flying are not the best (mediocre visibility, low temperatures, high humidity), the winds will increase in the afternoon. It’s now, or never.

Fifteen minutes later, I am on the sea ice. At first, I let the drone fly at an altitude of only 2-3 metres for two minutes. I land it and check the propellers. Are they free and able to move? Is there visible icing? What about the battery? Luckily, everything looks fine. With a new battery I lift the drone up to 65 metres to fly a zigzag pattern to get a mosaic of photos to be stitched together later. The flying itself works pretty well, although I get some wind warnings on the display of my remote control. I have some minor issues with the camera gimbal and take another flight to get some backup photos. At the very end I take a snapshot of our icebreaker.

And a selfie or two. I am wearing a survival suit and a helmet from the Norwegian Polar Institute, a woollen sweater I bought in Longyearbyen two years ago and a balaclava knitted by my friend Christine.

When I have finished, I leave the sea ice. After redressing and a small break I take another bridge watch. Nothing happens, and so it should be. The exciting part comes thereafter. Are the photos – 126 in total – suitable for an orthomosaic? I mean, the single shots look like this:

Preview of the drone photos in Lightroom

An then, the relief: WebODM, the software successfully stitches together the photos.

Why does the image has this odd angle? Because it contains spatial data, so that it can be used in GIS systems. It is therefore aligned north. Here is a cropped version aligned parallel to the ship:

Will there be another ice station? I’m pretty sure. Probably not tomorrow, when we expect another strong gale, with wind speeds above 20 m/s. So I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, apart from one thing: all meals will be on time.

Into the ice, into the storm Oct 16 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

14 October

After encountering a small ice field in the morning, we reach the marginal ice zone. So it looks like round 16:00:

Less than an hour later, it looks like this:

At six o’clock, people are standing on the bridge, peeking into the snowfall, driven by the increasing wind. A mooring is about to be recovered. It has been collecting data for more than a year, and now its release mechanism will be triggered by a so-called hydrophone, allowing the air-filled orange buoys to float to the surface and making the mooring visible. Then it has to be located visually so that it can be towed onto the ship. Not easy, when it looks like this.

The buoy is spotted, and now the long cable, equipped with instruments at different depths, is pulled onto the ship. Not easy, because ice floes drift along and carry the cable with them, bringing them close to the ship, until the cable is released. A new version of ice fishing.

This is a good example of teamwork. You need experts on deck doing the manual work, a helmsman steering the ship with Fingerspitzengefühl, people on the bridge spotting the next buoy, and good communication between these groups. The first activity is successfully completed, with a wow-effect.

Watching the sea ice illuminated by the ships spotlights has its own beauty. I still cannot get enough from these views.

The weather, however, worsens. At 21:10, the wind speed reaches 20 m/s for the first time that day, and the temperature is dropping as well. It is snowing, and each snowflake leaves a bright trail, like a meteor. How will the weather be like tomorrow?

15 October

Over night, it has become even colder and windier. The temperature -10 °C and falling, and the wind speed is above 20 m/s and increasing. Ice floes cover the ocean. Now I’m glad, I brought my warmest down parka with me.

Two CTD casts have been completed today, but then it became too stormy to continue. I go onto the helicopter deck to take some photos, but the wind is so strong, that although I never thought it could actually happen, I’m afraid of being blown overboard. I can’t see much because I’ve pulled up the fur-trimmed hood of my parka to protect myself from the cold, and the wind blows the fur in all direction closing the hood even further.

In the evening – well, I managed to get a shot from the side of the ship, where I was slightly sheltered from the storm. When I went around the corner to the helicopter deck, I had to seek shelter because the storm was too strong. I took a selfie, but in a sheltered corner so that I could stand steadily and avoid getting frostbite on my hand while using my mobile phone.

16 October

At the risk of repeating myself, the weather looks even worse. I wake up at 5 o’clock, and the temperature is -15.4 °C with a wind speed of 26.2. That’s a wind chill of -32.6 °C. In mid-October!

If you have read this article so far, you might get the impression that I am here as a photographer, but I’m actually here as a data manager, and I spend a lot of time at my computer in the Conference Work Room. I just don’t write too much about my computer work here. I am making good progress, but the distractions are there, for example, the frost patterns on the outer windows. This one looks like a jellyfish made of ice.

Right after lunch I go outside once more, this time to the ship’s stern, where I had a better protection from the wind. Oh, how I love watching the sea ice gently drifting by or being crushed forcefully by the ship.

Ok, back to work. I’m almost finished with the day’s work when the others in the room suddenly jump up and disappear. A polar bear has been sighted in front of the ship. It takes me some time to put on my face mask, helmet, down parka, down pants, gloves, and boots, and to mount the big telephoto lens. Only then can I take some photos of the bear in the distance. It approaches at first, but then turns right and trots away.

Fram Strait cruise – departure Oct 14 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

12 October

The weather in Tromsø is clear, the mountains are white, and the reindeer are flying.

At least, it looks like this, while I’m sitting at Gate F18 of Tromsø Lufthavn, waiting for my flight to Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Some of my colleagues from the Norwegian Polar Institute are here as well. We are all going on board the research icebreaker Kronprins Haakon (KPH) for a cruise in the Fram Strait between Svalbard and northern Greenland for almost three weeks the next day.

On arrival in Svalbard, we get a lift to our respective hotels, where we stay overnight.

Passing Kronprins Haakon on our way to the centre

footpath to UNIS, where NPI has its office, too

13 October

Three of us were staying in Coal Miner’s Cabin, which is south of the centre. We share a taxi to Bykaia, part of the Port of Longyearbyen, where KPH is berthed. It has got warmer and it’s raining.

And here it is – the ship on which the 18 of us will spend the next three weeks together with the crew.

Just kidding! The RV Kronprins Haakon is actually lying in the other direction.

During the evening, the weather gets a bit ugly. It’s +5 °C, it’s raining and the wind speed is around 20 m/s. The sea state gets rougher and the waves grow higher.

14 October

In the morning the sea has calmed down and at a quarter past nine I feel the first small bump as a small ice floe collides with our ship. We have entered a band of pancake ice.

Now we are in open water again and the conditions are calm. Anyway, if Windy is right, we will get pretty rough weather tomorrow with a wind speed of around 18 m/s and an air temperature of -17 °C – a drop of almost 20 degrees. That would result in a windchill of -33 °C and I am very glad that I took my Canada Goose parka and trousers with me.

Between seasons – between journeys Oct 12 2026

It is a frosty morning in Tromsø. Warm sunlight lies on the snow-covered tops of the mountains and the birch trees have shed their leaves. Other trees and bushes are still wearing their autumn garb but their leaves are falling, too. There, on the ground they become covered with morning frost, a clear sign that it is still autumn, but winter has already knocked on the door.

I am not only between seasons, but also between journeys. It was a week ago that I returned from the four-week holiday in Western Canada that Annika and I took. Now my suitcase is packed again, along with a huge bag containing my Canada Goose down parka and pants. In a few hours I will fly to Longyearbyen on Svalbard, and tomorrow I will embark on another expedition on the icebreaking research vessel Kronprins Haakon with the Norwegian Polar Institute. We will spend almost three weeks in the Fram Strait between Svalbard and Greenland, and I had a lot to organise over the past few days. Now I finally have time to look forward to the cruise. As always I am pretty curious. How will the sea ice situation be? Will I get my tasks solved? How will the weather be? Will I still remember Canada while being on the ship?

Probably I will have some spare time to blog from the ship, but I cannot promise. We’ll see …

28 September – 1 October – the last days Oct 11 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-09: Canada”.

It was more than three weeks ago that our holiday in Canada began. We still have some days left, but we are on the home stretch. It has been a spectacular holiday with many more impressions than I had hoped for, and if I had to say what the best part was, I couldn’t give a single answer. Besides, I got to share it all with my wife Annika.

28 September

After the wonderful previous day, when we drove the Icefields Parkway we have another day at the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, a ski resort 500 metres above the town of Golden, My plans for the day; a swim in a lake and an afternoon nap. But first: breakfast.

Breakfast in our apartment in the Glacier Mountaineer Lodge

We take the car to the Cedar Lake, a nice bathing lake nearby. First we hike to Astro Lake through autumnal forests. The way back is a bit longer than expected, and a chance to cool down in Cedar Lake, which has its own bathing jetty is mostly welcome. I spend some time swimming in the cold water, and back at the apartment I am shivering. Luckily, our apartment has a bathtub, which gives me my second bath of the day.

29 September

Oh, this is an early morning. For three weeks we have been spreading out all our belongings in our rental car, now everything is properly packed again, because today we have to return the car. Not in Golden, but in Calgary – 300 km away – by 10 o’clock. When we start, it is pitch black and it is raining. It takes more than an hour until I can distinguish the mountains against the cloudy sky.

Returning the car works like a charm. There is a dedicated lane off the road and the friendly staff wave us into a parking bay. We take our belongings, return the key, and that’s it. We take the number 500 bus into town and another one to our Airbnb apartment, leave our luggage and look for a place where we can return our deposit bottles that we collected over the past few weeks. They are not accepted in the supermarkets but in special bottle depots.

30 September

Today we want to discover Calgary. We take a bus to the centre and cross the Bow River, the very same river we saw in the Rockies three days ago. We return to the centre on the Peace Bridge and take a stroll through the Prince’s Island Park, located on a river isle. The combination of the skyscraper-dominated cityscape, the river and the autumnal trees has its appeal.

In town we drift through the streets, which are laid out in a grid with streets (St) and avenues (Ave). The number of skyscrapers is stunning. There are many with apartments, but it looks like the big ones with the mirrored façades seem to be mainly office buildings.

But of course there are other houses as well, sometimes contrasting with their modern siblings, sometimes just finding a small patch, where they stand like a dandelion on an asphalt road.

We enjoy our last dinner in the Taste of Yemen, where we get an incredible meal at more than reasonable prices. If I lived in Calgary, I would be a regular visitor there.

1 October

Time to fly home. After having the last breakfast, packing our belongings, taking the bus to the airport, leaving the baggage, waiting for the flight and then Annika and I leave Calgary, sitting side by side in the very last row of the aeroplane. I have set my clock forward eight hours to get back to Central European Summer Time again and try to sleep as much as possible. It is more than a series of naps. When I wake up for the umpteenth time, we are above the coast of Labrador. It is night and I cannot see any landscape, but I do see a faint green arc in the north. The first Northern Lights of the season.

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