The Florida Keys are made up of some 1,700 islands.  From Miami to Key West, this archipelago stretches over 150 miles alone.  It’s here where I found some unique saltwater kayaking opportunities stretching from the Cow Key to Key Largo.

Kayaking through the Cow Key Channel

The two hour, 1.5 mile roundtrip through the Cow Key Channel beginning at US Highway MM (mile marker) 4.1(just outside of Key West) with Lazy Dog Kayak Guides involved a steady current that’s heavily influenced by the two high and low tides coming from both the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean each day.  The firm breeze helped to counter the muggy conditions.  Bethany and her four-legged companion Tucker (a.k.a. “Mr. T”) served as our guides.

Through her guidance as we kayaked through open waters 2-10 foot deep, a natural mangrove creek and one “hurricane hole” (a pond surrounded by mangroves that offer more protection from hurricanes), I got an up close and personal view of primary Red Mangrove trees, whose prop roots filter out about 95 per cent of the saltwater while the trees leaves sacrifice themselves to filter out the rest of the salt so the trees can have “potable” water.   Their death means decomposition in the channel, which creates the soil ingredients to build up the small islands.

In my 12 foot Perception model, I heard the soundtrack of osprey, Great Blue and White Heron as I paddled through the waters, ranging in depth of two to ten feet.  Bethany often stopped alongside the mangrove growth to educate our group about the plant and animal life thriving here, letting us hold them.  Creatures like the prickly-feeling Florida Spiny Sea Star, and the Sea Cucumber, which has the feel of its vegetable counterpart.   She was excited when she came across a government-protected Queen Conch, a large creepy-looking snail that would make the subject of a good horror film.

Venturing to the Key with “No Name”

Just four miles off of US 1 at MM 30, I found a more isolated, off the beaten path world, where I kayaked roundtrip over a couple of hours in waters 1-18 feet in depth from Big Pine Key to the No Name Key (where the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was staged).   The winds whistled through the palms on a mostly cloudy morning and afternoon, helping to keep the heat and mugginess in check.   Our guide from Big Pine Kayak Adventures, was Bill Keogh.  He’s kayaked some 800 Florida Keys.

Like Bethany at Cow Key, Keogh’s four-footed friend joined, a friendly mixed breed named Scupper, who quickly won my fondness.  As we set off from Big Pine Key, the scent of sulfur permeated my nostrils because of the decomposing seagrass which this Key catches from Florida Bay.  Getting to the Key with “No Name” meant crossing the Bogie Channel’s choppy waters (about a 1/3 mile long) in a 12 foot Vapor that weighed 50 pounds.

When I looked down into the more shallow waters, I caught the sight of flat Turtle Grass, round Manatee Grass, and soft-looking Shoal Grass waving back and forth.   Being out in this wide channel heightened my sense of isolation from the hustle and bustle only a few miles away.  My eyes took in the sight of a kettle of Turkey Vultures heading south for winter.   Arriving at the No Name Key, we paddled into a deep mangrove forest via a very narrow creek, so narrow that I dismantled my paddle into halves, using one along with low-hanging branches to navigate hundreds of feet.  But awaiting my camera was a camouflaged Yellow-Crowned Night Heron bouncing around from tree to tree as well as a variety of crabs climbing the densely-packed branches.

Breakfast and pelting rain in Boot Key Harbor

“Kayak Dave” said this about how one paddles a kayak, “It’s like sex, so long as you’re having fun, it doesn’t matter how you do it!”   He admonished me to turn my body more instead of my elbow during my three mile roundtrip to and from Boot Key (where Radio Marti broadcasts to Cuba take place) as light to moderate rain pelted me from above the first half of my journey.  Thunder and lightning thankfully weren’t part of the storm.  We started out at Sombrero Beach on Marathon’s Vaca Key, facing the Atlantic.  This Key is named for “the cow of the sea,” the manatee.  Vaca is Spanish for cow.

En route to Boot Key via Boot Key Harbor my eyes caught sight of million dollar homes sharing the shorelines with red mangrove forests.  The snowy egrets were plentiful, but very camera shy when approaching them for a close up shot.    My 12.5 foot, 44 pound Cobra Navigator was much more prone to capsize as I navigated through this Key’s creek.  The tree branches created such an obstacle that leaning into them wrongly could result in capsizing. “No-see-ums” (biting midges) terrorized my eyes inside the still waters, but I was covered up otherwise, avoiding further torture.  I at least caught my first glimpse of a yellowish nurse shark as it swam at the bottom of the creek.

The longest 1.5 miles in the Key Largo area

I’d never forget the challenges I faced over 1.5 miles using a sea kayak the first time.   One of the realities of this sport is that weather plays a pivotal role on one’s experience.   I set off from Key Largo into Garden Cove in a Current Designs 17 foot, 52 pound sit-in model.  The 25 knot winds immediately caused me to drift about in the rough waters either because my foot pedal adjustments (foot pedals move the rudder) made on shore didn’t lock in and/or I didn’t keep my feet fully on them.

It came at a time when I needed to cross an area shared by motorboats; and thus, fear almost got the better of me.  But thankfully, my guide Todd of Florida Bay Outfitters and another really skilled kayaker came back to “rescue” me, getting on both sides of my vessel to readjust the foot pedals.  I made my way southward down North Sound Creek, which separates Key Largo from Rattlesnake Key.   It was here where I’d see the beginnings of another red mangrove island, as numerous red mangrove trees were scattered about like an archipelago obstacle course.

For as the gusts of winds blew this way and that in the creek (which were less strong), I found myself getting stuck against the trees, which meant that Todd had to fall back from the rest of the group to bail me out.  I’ll admit that the wind is something that I found hard to deal with even as sunny skies above at least kept me dry.   Nonetheless, as we ventured back to Key Largo across the cove, the guide had to tow me in the headwinds part of the way.  Still, I had to still paddle my kayak, trying to emulate the strong motions he did in leading me safely, even as the swells hit my boat, splashing salt water on my jacket, face, and mouth.   I found shelter against some mangroves while waiting for him to come back with others.

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Pictures credit to Roy A. Barnes and may not be used without permission.

 Disclosure:  The writer attended a pres trip sponsored by Florida Keys Tourism Council   but what he wrote are his impressions and were not vetted by the sponsor.  He  writes from southeastern Wyoming. 

Long ago, back in the Dreamtime, say the Aborigines of the Atherton Tableland, the carpet snake, Buda-ji, used to frequently journey from the Tableland to the coast. Here, he would collect the beautiful nautilus shells, to barter for the things he needed. In his journeyings, he carved out the Barron Gorge and its tributary creeks, singing his song on the way.

Those who know the song can follow his trail even today. It’s doubtful, though, that John Robb, the engineer responsible for supervising the railway up here knew the song. But, by design or accident, he did approximately follow the path of Buda-ji, and the locomotives drawing the trains on what is now the Kuranda Scenic Railway are brightly painted with paintings telling his story, designed by Aboriginal artist George Riley.

The mountain town of Kuranda was founded in 1873 by miners in search of the gold that had been discovered in those thickly forested hills. Other valuable minerals were also found nearby. But, the town and the mines were served only by primitive tracks from the coast, which had to deal with thick rainforest and difficult terrain.

The winter of 1882 brought unprecedented heavy rain, rendering the tracks impassable, and the people of Kuranda and nearby settlements almost starved because essential supplies couldn’t get through.

A regular, reliable supply route, preferably a railway, was urgently needed. The Government commissioned a bushman named Christie Palmerston to find a suitable route. From the several he suggested, the one which was chosen led down the precipitous but spectacular Barron Gorge, almost following the legendary track of Buda-dji.

John Robb supervised the No 2 section, the most difficult section. Up to 1500 men had to lay the track almost by hand; they moved almost three million cubic metres of earth, and built 15 tunnels and 55 bridges in the 23 miles from Cairns. This was a stupendous feat of engineering, winding away down the gorges from over 100 feet at Kuranda to sea level at Cairns, and the railway rightly takes its place as a National Engineering Landmark.

I’d recommend the descent down the gorge for the best views; you can get up to Kuranda by means of the Skyrail, a long cable car ride that lifts you from the foot of the hills in three stages through the rain forest canopy up to the town. The Skyrail will give you an excellent view of the stately Barron Falls, as the Barron River leaps over the edge of a precipitous cliff. If you want, you can leave the cableway here, to rejoin later, and walk a short distance to a “lookout”, where there’s an even better view.

There’s also a photo, showing the frantic tumult of the falls when the river is in spate … and really angry.

But, the best view of all is on the way down from the Barron Falls station on the railway. The train stops here to allow photography, and, if the train isn’t too crowded, the staff take advantage of the stop to redistribute the passengers, so everyone gets a window seat. Then, the train sets off again to wind its way down the gorge.

Even more majestic are the Stony Creek falls … they’re on the logo of the railway and most souvenirs show the train passing them. It’s a pity, though, that there’s no stop here, and any photography has to be done out of the train window. They do give you plenty of warning when they’re approaching it, though.

In most places, this would be called a narrow gauge railway, but here in Queensland, 3’6” is the standard gauge. So, in the event of failure of one of the specially-painted diesel locomotives, a replacement can easily be sent from the main line. The carriages, though, are vintage, usually, with an open platform at each end, which would be superb for photography … if you were allowed to ride on it.

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Australian Historical Railways

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Keith Kellett is a professional freelance travel writer and regular contributor to the Traveler

By Anne Gordon

At the “launch pad”, a brief bus ride from Churchill in northern Canada, tundra buggies, like over-sized moon vehicles, await the day’s explorers.
On arrival our driver warns us to stay seated while he checks the dark space beneath the pad for opportunistic polar bears. This elevated platform now used for boarding the buggies was named for the rockets that were launched from here in the 1950s to study the Northern Lights.

Pronounced safe …we disembark and board a massive vehicle, one of only 19 designed and built specifically for polar bear sightseers. Huge rubber wheels, almost five feet high, elevate the buggy cab sufficiently to avert a polar bear invasion. It’s cozy inside the 40-seat spacious interior.

Jarrett, our driver, reads us the Riot Act before we set out:

Don’t whistle at the bears. Nobody seems to have found the right tune anyway. The washroom is at the back of the buggy and you’ll notice the water is blue. If you don’t want a blue bum don’t use it while we’re in transit.” I understand his warning as soon as we hit the trail.

Old military tracks are our road. In an advanced state of disrepair, and presumably untouched since the withdrawal of the occupying military presence, we lurch, bump and roll across the tundra, like a ship on a storm-tossed sea. I pop a Gravol tablet to keep a heaving stomach under control. Negotiating a track where the hump in the middle resembles a mini mountain with deep water-filled gullies on either side, I wonder about our progress. But, like a determined elephant, our buggy trundles onward across a vast and lonely landscape.

All eyes except for mine scan the horizon for bears. As a photographer, mine are, for the moment, drawn to more simple pleasures; scrubby low willow, golden grasses, brilliant emerald colored moss, pale Reindeer lichen, burnt umber, ochre and orange lichens interspersed with bayberry in stunning shades of rose. I find this earthy palette of plants and striated glacial rock particularly beautiful.

Moving along we pass bonsai-like arrangements of stunted tamarack and black spruce. Each tree has a minimal flounced skirt of evergreen close to the ground, topped with a sparse flagpole trunk no higher than six feet. The skirt protects the vulnerable tree from winter snow, leaving the exposed trunk to battle the Arctic winds. These trees could be up to 300 years old; wind and weather ensuring that they never reach the height of their relatives in warmer southern climes.

All around us late migrating sandpipers and plovers skim across vast watery sloughs. Ptarmigan, not the brightest of birds we are told, scurry around in the willow scrub. Perfectly adapted for this environment, they have a heavy concentration of feathers just above the ankle.

We have arrived in October at just the right time. Any day now there could be a heavy snowfall and then the ptarmigan’s winter plumage will blend with the background making the birds almost invisible. Apart from the gigantic polar bears, there is abundant life here in the northern isolation of Manitoba. Arctic hare, arctic fox, snowshoe hare, wolves, moose, caribou and many other creatures roam the tundra in search of food in the coldest months.

The first sighting of a bear – probably about a mile distant – prods us into action. Windows crash down. Cameras are readied. One of our binocular-wielding companions assures us that it is a mother bear with a cub lying on her back. As more bear sightings occur – all much closer – we become blasé. In two days touring we will see in total 62 bears, one so close that I could feel its breath on my face.

I notice that many bears have scraped out ‘day beds’ in the dense spongy kelp on the Hudson Bay shoreline. Just a brief period of sparring where two bears play-fight in the process of toning their bodies and reflexes for a harsh life on the sea ice, causes them to overheat. Thus, on a bed of kelp they prostrate themselves, tummies close to the permafrost in an effort to keep cool.
Polar bears are curious creatures. Venturing closer they stand on their hind legs and stretch at full length against the buggy.

At the back of the buggy on the viewing platform, I have a nose-to-nose encounter with a massive male. Just feet apart, my camera trained on his face, I look into a pair of dangerously intelligent eyes. They are dark brown edged with a milky halo. He hisses softly as he watches me. As I look back at him through my lens I feel almost hypnotized. He is what Jarrett calls “a real pretty bear”, but the truth is that this huge, cuddly-looking animal with its gentle dog-like face could and would, given the opportunity, crush a human head with its powerful jaws in seconds.

A representative from Polar Bears International shows us exactly how, in a demonstration with Jerratt acting as polar bear lunch. Using a bear skull to illustrate the bear’s modus operandi, she opens the jaws fully, then clamps it over Jarrett’s head.

Moving on, we approach Polar Bear Point where one of the local touring companies operates the Tundra Buggy Lodge, comprising a row of trailers hitched together. Up to twenty wildlife enthusiasts and professional photographers occupy these rustic accommodations for what is likely to be an uninterrupted 24/7 photographic bonanza.

Polar Bear Point is directly en route for the bears as they make their way north across the tundra towards Churchill and the sea ice. Since the melting of the ice in July, the bears have spent the entire summer in groups of sometimes15 males wandering the coastline of Cape Churchill. Their diet has been minimal: berries, kelp and grasses. They have not had a taste of a seal for nearly three months and they are ravenous. We have been warned not to feed them.

After our lunch – steaming bean soup, turkey, tuna and egg salad sandwiches followed by Danish pastries served picnic style, we settle to bear-watch. Bears teasing each other, others rolling around on their backs in the patchy snow like fluffy blond Orangutans, the curious visiting with us at the tundra buggy, and in the distance traveling bears advancing slowly but steadily across rock and kelp.

Anxiety mounts as we catch sight of three large males stalking a mother bear with her two cubs. Like lions and crocodiles, these powerful carnivores have no sentimental feelings about their progeny. Their own cubs or others are fair game for a meal, especially when the pursuer hasn’t eaten for three months.

The only one who seems to care about the defenseless cubs is the mother. They could not ask for a more vigilant protector. She tolerates just so much from the pesky stalkers, then lashes out in a furious charge sending them all scurrying for safety. Although weighing a mere 550 pounds compared with males that can stand up to 10 feet tall and weigh up to 1500 pounds, the mothers will defend their cubs to the death, inflicting terrible damage on any male that ventures close enough to snatch one.

Thinking back on those incredible days on Canada’s Arctic tundra I couldn’t help fear for the future of these magnificent beasts.

The polar bear population has dwindled to around 25,000 and the alarm bell is tolling for their survival. Because of global warming, the sea ice is forming later each year. The bears are fasting up to three weeks longer. Spending less time on the ice means the bears are unable to hunt and build up the body reserves necessary for the summer months on land. There is a danger according to Lara Hansen, a scientist with the World Wildlife fund, “that bears could become so thin by 2012 they may no longer be able to reproduce.” Without a determined effort to control this mounting problem this could be the century that polar bears become a memory, a tragic loss for humanity.

My journey to the far northern climes of Canada to see polar bears was as fascinating to me as any journey I had ever made – to see lions in Africa, tigers in India, or kangaroos in Australia. I am reminded of G.K. Chesterton’s words:

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land”.

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Anne Gordon is a freelance travel writer and photographer based in Canada. For more of her world travels, visit Anne’s blog

By Anne Gordon

Tell a North American fisherman that he can catch fish with a spider web and he’ll scoff at the idea.  Then tell him that a rattle made of coconut shell and bamboo is a sure thing for luring sharks and the response will be equally incredulous.

In Papua New Guinea off the northern coast of Australia, fishermen gather spider webs from the forest at daybreak.  Attached to kite tails, trailing webs when skimming across the water lure drummer fish to the surface.  Then, tangled in the fine strands the fish are drawn in.

As for luring sharks, David Kirkland, an Australian photographer, had first-hand experience of that dangerous undertaking.  Joining what he thought was a seasoned “shark caller” he paddled out to sea in a flimsy outrigger canoe.  Lowering a coconut shell and bamboo rattle into the water his companion shook it.  Within minutes a curious shark emerged from the inky depths.  At the sight of the monster, the Papuan – obviously a novice – took fright.  Tipping the dugout, he unseated Kirkland who landed foursquare on top of the shark.  “I shot off that bloody shark like an Exocet” said Kirkland.  “My camera equipment … sank to the bottom.

In the ocean surrounding Papua New Guinea, divers can expect to see scorpion fish, ghost pipe fish, pygmy sea horses swaying beside giant sea fans, Eagle Rays advancing like an army of predatory space-age birds and sinuous evil-eyed eels peering from cavities in the coral reef.

Schools of barracuda swirling in glittering funnels lit by a filtered sun sweep out of the blue, while silver tip sharks cruise by, slow and menacing.  From the daintiest sea slug to the gargantuan proportions of a gliding whale shark as it sups on masses of krill each time it opens its mouth, this ocean with its islands, atolls and coral reefs is ranked among the world’s finest diving destinations.

Land exploration in Papua New Guinea is equally magical.  Western crowned pigeons and Birdwing butterflies live alongside jungle wallabies, possums, tree kangaroos and echidnas who at mating time link up with a train of other lovelorn males to pursue a single female for sometimes four weeks at a time.

Disembarking from a bush plane in the village of Timbunke, we six travel-obsessed women were ready for a journey that would cover places that few westerners have ever seen.  Our exploration was to take in the central part of the Sepik river watercourse that twists and winds for 700 miles to the Bismarck Sea.

Stilt villages along the river are home territory to sorcerers, spirits, strange rituals and dark secrets.

Villagers whose antecedents have lived alongside the Sepik for thousands of years, have a spectacular art tradition.  Their Haus Tambarans (Spirit Houses) are beautifully crafted.  Masks, hand drums, ancestral figures and shell jewellery are making their way into the western collectibles market. Head dresses crowned with feathers and decorated with pig’s tusks and shells are a popular buy. Fantastical Malagan helmet masks specifically made for use in ceremonies honouring the dead, are to be found in museums around the world.

We visited a “Women’s House” (men and women live separately along the Sepik) where young girls, their mothers and grandmothers, bare-breasted but bejeweled with necklaces of shells and gleaming ivory tusks and wearing grass skirts danced for us.  In the ‘Mens House’ we listened enthralled to the beat of a voluminous drum and haunting primeval music of flutes drifting in the sultry air.

Young men of the Iatmul tribe, believing that they are descended from a crocodile, undergo an initiation ritual that involves having crocodile patterns cut into their bodies with ultra sharp blades.  John Fearfull, the captain of the “Sepik Spirit”, a riverboat on which we traveled, is one of few white men ever initiated into this tribe.

On a steamy night as the “Sepik Spirit” rocked gently against a pit pit covered riverbank, Fearfull told us of his initiation ordeal.  Following a lengthy period of sleep deprivation and numerous painful and frightening rituals – many of which he would not describe because of sworn secrecy – hundreds of incisions made with ultra sharp blades were cut into his body.  As the painful ceremony was underway, elders beat garamut drums made from hollowed-out tree trunks elaborately carved to resemble totem animals.

For days afterwards the incisions were scrubbed to open them up, then mud was packed into the cuts to cause infection making the resultant scars more prominent.  In Fearfull’s words, “It was a serious commitment for me.  I felt strongly about the initiation, I still do, but the cutting and what followed, made for the worst pain I have felt in my entire life.  At one point the elders thought I would bleed to death.”

On all Papua New Guinea islands dress is a distinguishing factor.  In the Highlands, attire is often a bunch of leaves hanging from a bark belt to cover the buttocks and a lap lap (a small piece of cloth) worn in the front to cover genitalia.  A bow with accompanying arrows slung over one shoulder is not just a fashion accessory.  It completes the outfit of a modern day warrior.

For ceremonies and festivals males in particular take on a whole new persona.  For them, self decoration is an art form, an exhibition of culture and a celebration that identifies them with a specific clan.

Huli men wear elaborate crescent shaped wigs similar to a toreador’s hat.  Fashioned from their own hair, wigs are trimmed with yellow daisies and crowned with sprays of long silky Bird of Paradise feathers.  Faces are painted canary yellow.  Earrings made from toolbox oddments, necklaces made from seeds and opalescent shells, and a slender twig or a two-foot long feather through a pierced nose add to their adornment.

Mud men from Goroka with their huge mud masks and sharpened bamboo claws on their fingers are more intimidating.  Bodies are covered with whitish clay.  Brandishing clubs and spears during an aggressive dance gives them the appearance of creatures from the underworld.

Attending the Mount Hagen festival in August is to see Papuans at their most magnificent.  Thousands of clansmen from all the islands gather in this small Highland town to enjoy three days of competition and fun.

Like the male bird when out to attract a mate, Papuan men – handsome at best – are most glorious when dressed for a Sing Sing.

Except for the gangway’s frenzied chunk-chunk against the flank of the anchored ship, the Antarctic blizzard furies around us in eerie silence. The captain of our converted ice-breaker has sought shelter in the flooded caldera of Deception Island, an ancient volcano north of the Antarctic Peninsula. Despite this safer anchorage, the Polar Star rolls and heaves in the five-foot swells.

Feeling for the gangway’s ice-skimmed steps with clumsy, insulated boots, I inch my way downwards. Below, a zodiac bucks at the end of its frozen tether. Other photographers and naturalists, waiting their turn to go ashore, press against the deck railing above me, faces shielded from the stinging snow by Darth-Vador face-masks.

For a split second the base of the gangway comes level with the zodiac. Gloved hands grip my wrists. One, two…THREE, and I land like a diving sea bird among six other passengers hunched against the gale. The outboard guns us forward.  Almost immediately the storm envelops us. We can see nothing but a tight circle of black water inches from our backsides.

Wilderness has always been a magnet for me. It offers something that eludes me in my modern-day life, a fast-paced world given over to anthropocentric power and control. To stand in a place where nature, not man, runs the show, and has since earth’s beginnings, is, to me, a miracle in action.

Antarctica is the largest wilderness on our planet. Yesterday, as the Polar Star cruised past the sheared-off abutments of glaciers creeping towards the sea, we saw layers of pumice and ice centuries old. I look at the beaches and try to stretch my imagination around the slow-motion pulverizing of volcanic rock that took eons to form their black sands. Even more amazing is the image of this continent as a once-upon-a-time tropical land whose plants and trees turn up as fossils buried in those black sands, a land from which sections detached and sailed away to become today’s South America, Africa and Australia.

Here in today’s Antarctica our ship skirts icebergs sculpted by wind and water into blue caves hung with stalactites, turrets clear as glass. Seals and penguins hitch rides on their glazed surfaces like commuters on public transport. Whales glide under our zodiacs, large and pale as the bottoms of pools.

On our daily landings we step around skeletons picked clean except for inedible flippers and claws. Our guides gauge every ripple of air as a possible overture to gales that will hold us hostage on shore for hours. To keep my fingers from freezing I learn to press the shutter of my camera without removing my insulated gloves.

Try to play God here, and you’re bones on the beach. In wild places like this, where life evolves at its own pace, according to its own mechanisms, I can slow down, think, regain my balance. The stark reality pushes aside my own nonessentials and zeroes me in on the best in myself.

As our zodiac hurtles across the snow-shrouded sea, I have the sense of a more recent past coming to life. Our invisible destination is a pebbled beach that, along with multiple other Antarctic locations, witnessed an epic slaughter of marine wildlife between the late 1800’s and the mid-1960’s. Here rest the rusting remains of machinery that processed the blubber of thousands of whales and, when the whales ran out, seals, sought in earlier years for their fur. Ultimately, even penguins became victims, feeding the hunger for oil destined to light lamps and lubricate newly invented machinery in far-away countries. The animals were taken in such numbers that many, thick in the water for centuries, reached the point of extinction in less than fifty years.

Straining our eyes, we begin to make out a blurry shoreline. Gauzy scarves of snow stream from figures bent against the wind, passengers and guides who left the ship on earlier zodiacs. The boat crunches onto volcanic rocks that emerge slick and glistening as we swing our booted feet into the surf and stagger onto the beach.

Through the snow flinging itself across the landscape, swaybacked wooden structures and spires of shattered machinery appear and disappear. To my right loom three rusted tanks the size of small buildings against whose shelter we lay our backpacks. Monuments to the butchery, these stored the oil.

The base of the farthest tank reveals a recently chiseled opening and through this all fifty of us make our way, one by one, into the gloom of an enormous interior. Cylindrical walls rise to a ceiling far above our heads, its fluted-umbrella shape pockmarked with points of luminescent snow-light. We fumble across a floor crisscrossed with pipes, at one time filled with steam or hot water to keep the oil from solidifying in the cold. I feel dizzy trying to fathom the number of slaughtered animals whose oil would have filled this one drum alone.

We are gathered in this place for a reason that I find deeply disturbing. A passenger, blessed with an operatic voice who enjoys performing before fellow passengers when he travels, has suggested that he sing for us within the oil drum. The acoustics are said to be phenomenal. To transform this memorial into a theatrical showcase seems to me to belittle the desecration that occurred here.

Layered in sweaters under a sky-blue windbreaker, the singer mounts a heap of burlap sacks. Wind, amplified within the hollow space, thunders against the drum, shakes and rattles sections of loose metal. We, the audience, ankle-deep in mud and pipes, wait.

The man holds aloft a tiny Walkman, pushes a button. From it issues a sound, dreamlike in this environment, the thin voices of violins barely audible above the storm’s din. Despite my disapproval, goose flesh prickles my neck and spine.

The soloist hits “stop” and begins to sing. Into the huge echoing chamber pours the beauty and tenderness of de Crescenzo’s “Rondine al Nido”.  The man’s tenor voice is rich and mellow, a meditation within the storm’s chaos. Next comes Giordano’s “Amor ti Vieta”, its loveliness threading through the howling wind.  Softened by the drum’s half-light, the singer’s self-importance fades, revealing dignity and passion. Tears run down my checks.

The concert lasts less than five minutes. Its effect on me is both unexpected and remarkable. With the storm stripping away attitude, the music has emerged as more than entertainment. It is an element that springs from something magnificent and unmarred in humanity, a beauty of spirit that has  transcended centuries of ego and aggression.

As the other passengers and I make our way through the blizzard, heading for the zodiacs that will take us back to the Polar Star and, ultimately, to our far-off cities and towns, I carry with me a reminder that within mankind exists a force that is capable of shining a light into all corners of the world, the radiance of the human soul.