I can say that I am happy, and I also can say that this trip has been fantastic. But still, I am disappointed. It took us several days to go up to the Kennedy Channel while all of us had the illusion to reach Alert, the northernmost settlement in the world. But the universe didn’t want us to get to Alert. 

Temperatures here as so extreme that we have to be very careful while navigating. The boat sometimes has to go slow because the ice can broke the machine, and sometimes we have to go fast for the opposite reason. The sad part of the story is that we were only 50 away from Alert and couldn’t make it.

What else could we do there? We were a bunch of strangers in the middle of the North Pole. So Sebastian (the husband) suggested going back, Elsa (how convenient name), the wife, told to go to Grise Fiord for provisions, and Jessica that was really mad at destiny, asked if she could take a flight from the Grise Fiord airport to Nuuk, Greenland.

Maurice (the father) spat his coffee when she said this.

-I think the easier way to go to Greenland is if I took you there, child. There haven’t been any flights between Canada and Greenland in years.

-Why if we go to Greenland? -I said adventurously.

Everyone looked at each other as my idea wasn’t crazy enough and then looked at Maurice. He was also sad as he wanted to reach Alert with his “brave” grandson. Maurice said: 

-If everyone agrees with me, I won’t take you to Greenland once, but two times. We are just a few kilometres away from Hans Island, and if there is no border patrol around, we even can put our feet and my brave grandson on that Canadian island.

I later learned why he said “Canadian” with emphasis. Hans Island is just at the line border between the two countries, and it has been disputed between Denmark and Canada for decades.

That is how is put my feet on Hans Island

There was still sunlight when we arrived there, and we could admire the disputed rock located in the middle of nothing. Anyhow was amazing to be with the probably youngest man in history that has stepped a foot on the disputed island.

We were only 15 minutes as Maurice was afraid of the authorities could revoke his tourist license to be there without permission.

After that, we went a bit South on the big Ellesmere Island to rest and recharge provisions on Grise Fiord. Maurice will discuss with the border patrol permission to cross to Greenland. Jessica and I took advantage of going alongside Amaruq (the tourist guide of the Inuit race) to some historical places and learning a lot about the Inuit culture.