For two weeks during the summer of 2010, I traveled through the high arctic aboard a Russian icebreaker – primarily up the eastern coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada and then down the western coast of northern Greenland. This area was inhabited by Inuit as early as 2000 B.C. but abandoned as a hunting ground half a millennium ago. In more recent times (a mere century ago) it served as the staging ground for a series of tragic and then, ultimately, triumphant efforts by explorers scrambling to reach the North Pole. Extending to well above 80 degrees of northern latitude, the rarely visited landscapes in this region are filled with glaciers, pack ice and polar bears. Indeed, although Ellesmere is the tenth largest island on Earth, its location and climate deter all but a few hundred visitors each year. Please enjoy the views from this exceptional corner of our planet.