Click for more photos from Day 9

First thing in the morning, we sail with the tide up Pangnirtung Fiord to the office of Auyuittuq National Park, where part of the group will spend the day exploring the biology of the fiord and another will hike more than 13 kilometres up Pangnirtung Pass to the Arctic Circle and back before suppertime. I end up in the hiking group and am totally amazed at how things have changed in the 27 years since I last hiked the pass. Although I don't have old photos with me for reference, I do have vivid memories of hanging glaciers at almost every turn in this deep and magnificent ice, suspended in valleys high up the wall of the main pass, with needle falls cascading down black rock to the roaring whitewater of the Weasel River far below. This time, many of those valleys are comprised of barren wet rock, as if the ice left yesterday. But make no mistake, the ice that was there is gone. It's a stark portrait of just have much things have changed in the north in a very short time.

Watching the students gallop up the pass, crashing through streams, up scree slopes and down alluvial sand banks and on and on — as if getting to the Arctic Circle first was a race, which it most definitely was — has left these old bones creaking a bit. Couldn't resist telling the first lads to make it to the Arctic Circle marker that those of us who'd been travelling a bit more slowly had seen a handsome male moose, complete with massive rack of antlers. They don't fall for the story but, on the four-hour return hike, it is wonderful to see everyone taking their time. It is as if getting off the ship for a whole day, having been somewhat cooped up for more than a week, is generating an excess of energy that has to be burned off before people can settle into the delicious rhythm of walking and chatting with new friends in what has to be one of the most spectacular places on Earth. So much has happened on this journey so far, with precious little time to digest all that has come before us. So, a little tired from the gallop up to the Arctic Circle, but with energy still to burn, most people take the opportunity to socialize on the way back, testing out ideas that have been emerging in their own thinking as these heady days have unfolded.