Canada
Kekerten Island lies in Cumberland Sound, off the southeastern coast of Baffin Island in Nunavut — a small, treeless island that once served as the center of the eastern Arctic's commercial whaling industry and now stands as one of the most evocative historical sites in the Canadian North. From the 1840s to the early 1900s, Scottish, American, and German whaling ships converged on Cumberland Sound to hunt bowhead whales, establishing shore stations where they overwintered alongside Inuit communities in a relationship of mutual dependence and cultural exchange that would reshape both societies.
The remains of the Kekerten whaling station are the island's primary attraction — a collection of ruins including stone foundations, tryworks (rendering ovens), blubber vats, and the scattered bones of bowhead whales that recall an era when this remote island was a bustling outpost of global commerce. The site has been designated a Territorial Historic Park, and interpretive panels explain the whaling process and the complex relationships between European whalers and Inuit hunters. Walking among the ruins, with the sound of the Arctic wind and the cry of seabirds as the only soundtrack, you can almost hear the voices of the men and women who spent their winters here in the perpetual darkness of the polar night.
The Inuit of Cumberland Sound were integral to the whaling industry, serving as hunters, guides, seamstresses (their skin clothing was essential for Arctic survival), and dog team drivers. The cultural exchange went both ways: Inuit adopted elements of European material culture, while whalers learned Inuit survival techniques that meant the difference between life and death in the Arctic. The site at Kekerten preserves evidence of both communities — qammaq (sod house) foundations alongside European-style buildings — in a palimpsest of Arctic habitation.
The natural environment of Cumberland Sound is extraordinary. The sound's deep, cold waters still support a population of bowhead whales, whose numbers are slowly recovering from the devastating nineteenth-century harvest. Beluga whales, narwhals, and ringed seals are also present, along with the polar bears that hunt them. The island's shoreline, littered with wave-polished whale bones and surrounded by the icebergs that drift south from the glaciers of Baffin Island, possesses a stark beauty that is simultaneously harsh and serene. In late summer, the brief Arctic wildflower season brings splashes of color to the tundra, and the midnight sun bathes the ruins in a golden light that seems to belong to a different age.
Seabourn includes Kekerten Island on its Canadian Arctic and Northwest Passage expedition itineraries. Zodiac landings provide access to the historic site and surrounding tundra. The visiting season is limited to August and September, when the sea ice in Cumberland Sound has retreated enough for vessel navigation. Kekerten is a destination for those who find meaning in the intersection of history and wilderness — a place where the ambitions and follies of human enterprise are slowly being reclaimed by the Arctic landscape.