Happy to be back at sea level, we ski along the river bed all the way down to the coastal fjord.  Along the way we see many enormous erosion patterns, revealing just how much meltwater flows through every summer. 

Once we reached the fjord, we skied onto the sea ice that still fills it this time of year.  In the distance, we could see many little black dots scattered about the ice.  As we got closer, the dots wiggled and vanished, as if sucked into the ocean below.  Eventually we come across holes in the ice where the little dots had been. 

A "little black dot" before disappearing in the distance.

The dots, it turns out, were seals sunbathing, and the holes are where they disappeared to.  Seals apparently carve these proprietary holes through about four feet of ice, then treating them as we might treat a vacation home.  They're also where polar bears wait patiently for dinner to surface. 

A "vacation home" for seals.

Speaking of which, we cross several fresh bear tracks throughout the day, but don't have the fortune (good or bad) of actually seeing one of these "great emperors of the Arctic." 

Towards the end of the day, we reach our final destination at the terminus of the magnificent Humboldt Glacier.  It stands about 300 feet tall and stretches 90 kilometers across the Kane Basin where it calves hundreds of icebergs every day into the Nares Strait.  Wow!

Tonight we will meet up with our Spanish friends--a TV crew who has spent the past two weeks with hunters from Qaanaaq, and with whom we're sharing a chartered flight home.  And tomorrow we will all explore this massive and truly awesome area. 

Alain skis on the frozen riverbed towards the fjord.