Three sailors who were sailing across the Northwest Passage this summer have completed the final part of their trip, landing in Halifax harbor on Saturday.

Cameron Dueck, along with two German sailors, sailed from Victory in early June and headed to the Arctic. The purpose of the voyage was to raise awareness about the impact that climate change has on the Arctic.

The three man crew sailed on the Silent Sound, a 40 foot yacht made out of fiberglass. Dueck said that Silent Sound was one of the smallest vessels to ever sail the Northwest Passage without the help of an icebreaker. He also said that as the summer ice in the Arctic continues to melt and retreat, similar trips will also become a possibility.
But despite the lack of ice the trip was not an easy one.

‘We had waves up to 8m high and winds over 40 knots. Silent Sound was being tossed around a lot, and I was thrown clear across the cabin on one occasion,” Dueck said, “suffering a minor concussion that kept me in my bunk for several days.”

Part of the trip involved talking to people living in the Arctic about the effects of climate change on the North and Dueck said that through their conversations it became clear that global warming is creating some major changes in the Arctic.

For those Native communities that relied in the past on the ice in order to access their traditional hunting grounds, Dueck said, finding that the ice is harder and harder to count on.

“It seems like those things don’t apply anymore because the ice is moving faster, it’s breaking up faster, it’s just much more dangerous and unpredictable.” he said. “And we heard that story again and again, every hunter we spoke to.”

“We saw and heard first hand about the impacts of climate change, from slumping land due to the melting of permafrost to hunter stories about the northward migration of species and the challenge that early ice break-up poses for transportation.”