Beaufort Sea

Take advantage of the brief summer thaw and enjoy the spectacular peculiarities of the Beaufort Sea. Frozen for most of the year, the Beaufort Sea is only navigationally possible during the short summer months of August and September when a channel near the Canadian and Alaskan shore opens up. Despite the sea being frozen for a sixth of the year, it is home to a myriad of wildlife, so lucky Northwest Passage travellers will be richly rewarded. Be on deck with binoculars and cameras at the ready for sightings of fish like Arctic char, birds like the king eider, marine mammals like beluga and bowhead whales, and, if you’re lucky, predators like the polar bear. However, circumstances in the rapidly changing Arctic might soon change the species habitations and have many scientists and ecologists are worried that the future of the wildlife of the Beaufort Sea hangs in the balance. Dispute has arisen regarding how long the shores have been populated by humans. Some say that the Beaufort Sea supported human life as long as 30,000 years ago, while others disagree, saying that the livelihoods and cultures of the Inupiat, Inuvialuit and Gwich’in peoples who live on the shores is much more recent. In any case, recorded discovery is less than 200 years old. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, the British 18th century naval officer whose observation of the wind and sea state resulted in the Beaufort scale.