We were on a British icebreaker escorting an American cruise ship through the North-West passage in the Canadian Arctic. We were offering helicopter tours to the travellers, so they could explore, from the air, the vast green landscape of the Arctic. This is how the operation proceeded: we would fly off from the icebreaker to embark travellers on the cruise ship. Then, we would fly over the area and come back to the ship to take on new passengers. To see the Arctic stripped of its white blanket is an image we don’t often see, but in the summer, the ice melts and the landscape is much different than what we can imagine when we think about the “Land of the bears.”

In the image below, we can see both our helicopters on the icebreaker, ready to take off.