Travel to the Arctic

The number of tours/cruises available to the Arctic and Antarctic are rapidly increasing. It seems that this is the new travel frontier.
Of course, cruises through the Northwest Passage to Alaska and also along the coast of Norway, have been happening for a long time now.
But now travellers now want to see Iceland, Greenland and the northern lights.
And to see the northern lights you need to travel in the northern hemisphere winter.
We travelled to Churchill to see the polar bears, and then continued on to Alaska and up the famous Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle to see the Aurora Borealis.
The polar bears migrate to the Churchill, Canada, area for only about 6 weeks a year as they wait for Hudson Bay to freeze over so they can go out to hunt seals.
Before that we spent a few days in each of New York, Montreal and Quebec.
That made for a very tricky situation for a cabin bag only trip!
The cities we visited late October and the polar bears early November - so we needed to be prepared for temperatures down to -30C.

The clothes list included: heavyweight woollen thermals, woollen skivvy, polar fleece sweater, thick polar fleece jacket with hood, down-filled vest and ski jacket. That's six layers on the top! The bottom layers included heavy weight woollen thermal leggings, thick polar fleece pants, waterproof overpants, long thick woollen sox and snow boots. All this plus mittens, woolen face/neck warmer, beanie and scarf.
Looking for a warm sweater in a shop, I was attended by a chap from Minnesota. He approved of my layers and said I would be fine. He said I would survive in Minnesota and if you can survive there the Arctic Circle is a breeze!

But for the cities we wanted a more urban look of course. I wore winter weight R M Williams cream coloured slacks plus leopard print boots. Added was a top for evening and pretty scarf.
We felt very pleased with ourselves when we were mistaken for locals on Montreal! So it goes to show you don't always have to look like a tourist!
Our bags were slightly over the 7kg limit (my boots weighed 1kg each!). We could have worn them through check-in but decided against it but had no issues. Of course we wore several of our layers but re-packed when we were in the lounge.

So don't be deterred when going to a cold country. It is quite manageable with a cabin bag. There might not be much variety in clothes but when you are in the Arctic no-one really cares!

Travel light!
Marie