Inuit-led cruise sets a new standard for Arctic tourism

National Observer

a day ago

Mariah Erkloo remembers as a child watching massive, gleaming vessels glide into her hamlet of Pond Inlet, Nunavut, bringing strangers to her Arctic home for a few hours before vanishing over the horizon. It wasn't an altogether positive experience, she recalls.
'You just feel their presence and that's it,' she said. 'It never felt like there would be any benefit or like a mutual relationship in that.'
Arctic cruise tourism has grown rapidly in recent years. In Nunavut, just a few ships used to visit, but now places like Pond Inlet can see up to 30 cruise ships in one short season between July and September.
International cruise operators typically sell and finalize their itineraries, then reach out to communities afterwards, asking them to organize events and tours for the visitors — sometimes at the last minute.
'There are examples in the past where companies are literally like, 'We're coming to your community on this day and we want you to do this for us,' which is insane to me,' said Alex McNeil, chief expedition officer at HX, a UK-based cruise operator.
This summer, Erkloo is helping McNeil and HX flip the script. Inuit communities are not just greeting tourists, but leading how the local experience is planned from the start.
'The majority of the industry, including us, are far from achieving what's possible through expedition travel,' said Alex McNeil, CXO at HX. 'We're trying to be further along on that journey than others, but it's still a work in progress.'
'We want more people involved and we want to impact more people and make sure we are a part of the conversation,' said Erkloo, who joined the HX team last summer to co-develop the project. She is a sociology student at UBC who returns home in the spring.
HX, formerly known as Hurtigruten Expeditions after its parent company, the Norwegian national ferry operator, is the first major international cruise operator to hand over control of shore excursions to the communities themselves.
McNeil, who has worked in tourism for a long time, recalls visiting Grise Fiord as a junior expedition guide in the late 2000s, when the mayor and residents welcomed the cruise guests with traditional food, games and performances.
'It wasn't a business transaction,' McNeil said. 'It was like, 'You're coming to our home, our shores and we're going to open our doors and just welcome you.''
But when the mayor asked the expedition leader where to send the invoice for their hospitality, he was told there was no budget. The community, not the cruise line, was left to cover the costs.
'I had never been so embarrassed and ashamed in my life,' McNeil said. 'There was such a disparity in resources and no compromise.'
More than a decade later, McNeil is overseeing HX's effort to do things differently.
Flipping the script
Traditionally, Arctic cruises visiting Nunavut communities operated the same way — cruise operators typically paid a base fee to the local hamlet. In exchange, visitors were offered a walking tour and a cultural performance at the community hall. The economic impact was minimal and the experience, though genuine, was not shaped by local priorities, McNeil said.
Under the new model, activities will look a little different: guided hikes, Arctic char fishing, community bingo, art workshops or a small-group conversation with community members will be offered instead.
From the outset, the company is co-creating itineraries with communities, including Pond Inlet, Gjøa Haven and Cambridge Bay.
'The majority of the industry, including us, are far from achieving what's possible through expedition travel,' McNeil said. 'We're trying to be further along on that journey than others, but it's still a work in progress.'
Last summer, HX ran pilot projects in Pond Inlet to test what it would look like if elders and residents shaped the cruise excursions — choosing the activities, setting the pace and deciding who would be involved.
'It feels like now the communities are like, 'Okay, these are things we want to do,'' Erkloo said.
Communities established their own limits on visitor numbers, duration of the excursion and the types of experiences they felt were both authentic and sustainable to share.
The company organized open community meetings where anyone could attend, not just community leaders or business owners.
'We just kind of opened up the space,' McNeil said. 'We want to invite them to add input and know what pressure points are [there]? What are areas you think are beneficial? What works and what doesn't?'
Arctic's tourism boom
The concept " last chance tourism ' has become a significant driver of demand in the Arctic, with many visitors motivated by the desire to see melting sea ice, threatened wildlife and unique Indigenous cultures before they are irrevocably changed.
In recent years, Inuit communities near Pond Inlet have taken a stronger role in shaping tourism activity, particularly as they pushed for changes to protect narwhals in Eclipse Sound after hunters and trappers reported sharp declines linked to heavy ship traffic. In response, cruise operators under the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators have agreed to avoid Eclipse Sound during peak narwhal migration, opting for less sensitive routes instead.
Christopher Debicki, vice president of policy development and counsel at Oceans North, a Canadian charity for Arctic and Atlantic marine conservation said while cruise and expedition travel are increasing, he rejects the idea that the Arctic is already lost.
"It's not too late, these places are still very, very vibrant both from a human perspective and from a biological perspective,' Debicki said. 'We're working really, really hard with community partners to make sure that's not the case, to make sure they stay really productive.'
Debicki said historically, ship noise in the region was rare, but recent increases in mining and cruise traffic have led to more repetitive noise, which interrupts narwhal behavior and makes hunting more difficult for local communities.
Oceans North is working with the Arctic cruise association and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography to better understand how underwater noise affects marine animals in the eastern Canadian Arctic. By using acoustic monitoring and working in close collaboration with Inuit hunters in Pond Inlet, their team aims to shape policies that protect wildlife and the people who depend on them.
'If we make the right choices, they're going to stay vibrant for this generation and for future generations,' Debicki said.
All revenue from shore excursions will go directly to the communities.
'If the tour costs, say, $200, we leave $200 in Nunavut,' he said.
The company earns its profits by selling their premium-priced packages, often marketed as once-in-a-lifetime Arctic journeys.
'We're selling trips that are like $20,000. If we can get people to go on those trips, we're doing just fine,' McNeil said.
McNeil is quick to mention that not all companies are falling short of delivering responsible programs in the Arctic. He pointed to Adventure Canada, a Canadian-owned operator, as a company that has set a high standard for community-focused Arctic tourism. However, their scale is smaller than HX — they run a single, smaller ship seasonally.
Most expedition cruise ships in the Arctic carry between 100 and 200 guests. HX operates two vessels on the Northwest Passage that can each accommodate up to 500 passengers — more than double the industry standard, though they typically sail with 300 to 400 guests.
Larger ships, like the Crystal Serenity, have sailed the Northwest Passage in 2016 with about 1,000 passengers and more than 600 crew raising concerns about overwhelming small hamlets along the route.
To avoid swamping communities, HX worked with the communities to break large groups into much smaller, more personalized excursions. Each excursion is limited to about 10 to 12 guests.
'If we're just putting more people, we're probably contributing toward negative outcomes, rather than creating positive change,' McNeil said.
Their approach is intended to spread economic benefits more widely, ease the strain on local resources and foster more meaningful exchanges between visitors and hosts, McNeil said.
McNeil said as a major industry player, they feel a responsibility to invest in local development, skills training and mentorship. By proving the concept works, they hope communities can adopt the model to offer tours and experiences to any cruise line that arrives in Nunavut.
Beginning in summer 2025, the operator will offer the community-led excursions as part of its 25-day Northwest Passage cruises between Greenland and Alaska.
'I just feel like we were planting seeds and then we're going to see what comes out of that,' Erkloo said. 'Right now, we're at the perfect turning point and it's really exciting for me.'