Ships bound for Northwest Passage wait in Nome for ice to clear

Two ships bound for the Northwest Passage were stuck in Nome’s harbor last week due to thick sea ice concentration in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
Alaska Climate Specialist Rick Thoman said that the ice is slowly beginning to open and guesses that the southern route of the Northwest Passage will likely open up later next month. “Just in the past couple days an open water path from the Bering Strait to Utqiaġvik has developed. East of Point Barrow still has lots of near-shore ice but slow melt ongoing,” he wrote via email on Monday, July 20.
Thoman said that the slow ice melt in the Chukchi Sea is likely due to the cool weather pattern. In the Beaufort Sea, ice from the Canadian Arctic was carried southwest by current to Alaska and Northwest Canada. That ice is thicker and takes longer to melt, contributing to the blockage.
The sailboat Lifexplorer, captained by Alberto Biffignandi, arrived in Nome July 8. Biffignandi, who is a businessman and entrepreneur, is from northern Italy; the boat sails under the flag of Switzerland. The ship left Seward in June.
Biffignandi said that Lifexplorer wants to make it past Point Barrow by August 5. He said that they may try and ease their way up north. “Maybe this week, next week, in the middle of next week, we approach a little bit to the ice,” he said.
The Lifexplorer is built for exploration. It can handle shallow water, which will come in useful near Utqiagvik and other shallow waters along the north coast of the continent. It can handle the cold. “It’s very, very thick aluminum, and with a very good insulation. We have two heating systems,” he said. “it’s very special to do this kind of thing.”
On their way to Nome, the travelers stopped in Sand Point, Hooper Bay, Scammon Bay and Golovin. Biffignandi said that in Alaska, he’s been welcomed everywhere. In Hooper Bay, the locals gifted them salmon. Near Scammon Bay, they were invited to a Fourth of July celebration. “That was a very good hospitality. I think that is at a super level, much more than in a lot of other countries,” he said. “You are more open than the rest of America.”
Lifexplorer is also collecting data as part of a citizen science project with Oceaneye, a nonprofit that raises awareness on plastic pollution and helps contribute to scientific efforts. The boat is equipped with a manta trawl, a net system designed to sample the surface of the ocean. When the conditions are right, Lifexplorer can collect samples that will contribute to open access data on ocean plastic pollution.
Biffignandi said it’s about giving back. “We are lucky to make this kind of thing, and we should do for ocean. It’s a debt that we have,” he said.
Biffignandi explained that Lifexplorer makes for the Northwest Passage in part because of the historical background of the route, in part simply because it’s possible and in part because of the unique nature of the Arctic environment.
“It’s high latitude sailing that you have different relation with the nature and with the man because you don’t have so many normal people,” he said. “We are all crazy people or special people.”
Other sailors have made their way north. The sailboat Tika, captained by Chuck Shuster out of Hood River, Oregon, arrived in Nome July 13.
Shuster and crew started their journey towards Nome in May. He hopes to make it through the Northwest Passage and winter the boat in somewhere Newfoundland. “Nome is the starting line for this – so 3,000 miles to the starting line and two months in,” he said in an interview July 17.
Shuster plans to have friends fly into different points of the trip to crew the boat. Former Nomeite Suze Burd, who lived here in the 1980’s and 1990’s, came along for the leg of the journey to Nome. Shuster asked Burd if she had any contacts in Nome and she delivered. “We’ve had social engagements. We have a truck to use. We have laundry,” he said. “It’s way over the top. It’s been really great because she has all these old friends here.”
The Tika is a metal boat, but Shuster’s not on the edge of his seat to be up amongst heavy ice. “It’s a stout boat, and it’s better than a non-metal boat,” he said. “But still, any boat you really don’t want to be pushing the ice.”
Shuster said for him, the Northwest Passage isn’t about checking a box or completing a list. “I wanted to see,” he said. “Even Nome, being not flat and boring, and the Arctic beyond. I wanted to see it myself.”
Still, with the ice locked in, Shuster said the trip may be cut short this season. “The way the ice picture’s developing, it’s a lot bigger possibility that it’s going to be such a late year,” he said. “Someone like me going this direction on this boat – unlike some of the big boats are coming in in a few days – may need to turn around to minimize the risk of getting stuck and wintering up there,” he said.
As daily ice updates come in, the Tika might leave and anchor in Port Clarence until it’s time to make the push north. “If it’s not too late, the choice will be to go on up and start following that as it develops and get through,” he said. “Or to get so far and see that it’s too late and not far enough and come back.”
Sailing big swathes of sea like this can be hard, but Shuster said it’s self-inflicted. “It’s my choice,” he said. “It can be quite intense and nonstop”
He thinks it’s worth it. “In life, I said, I’m more happy here than I have been or would be anywhere else,” he said.