In September, the Admiral Bellinghausen became the first Estonian ship to pass through the legendary sea passage and (approximately) the 160th yacht to complete the voyage.

“We had never thought that we would anchor in a zoo,” Estonian boatswain and explorer Maris Pruuli, told Polar Journal when asked to recount the highlight from her 2023 voyage through the Northwest Passage.

“It was somewhere in the center of the Northwest Passage, and we counted more than 40 polar bears at once, walking on the shore and swimming close by our boat. At that same moment a herd of more than 100 belugas swam by, and, although it is often foggy in the Arctic, it was a beautiful, sunny day. We just thought that it is unimaginable to experience a thing like that,” she continued.

This moment is just one of many that viewers of Estonian TV will be able to watch in the weeks to come. Because on February 1st, the telecommunications company Telia will premiere the third season of the TV-show, a TV-show that honors the proud history of Estonian polar exploration.

First to set sight on Antarctica

In 1820, an expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellinghausen became the first to ever lay eyes on the mainland of the Antarctic continent. This feat, although Bellinghausen was of German heritage and the expedition was Russian, was celebrated in the small Baltic country of Estonia.

Because Estonia, at the time home to many Baltic-Germans, was where Bellinghausen was born. And Bellinghausen is just one among many polar heroes born in Estonia. Others include:

• Otto von Kotzebue who also represented the Imperial Russian Navy and explored the Arctic waters around the Bering Strait in search of the Northwest Passage. Among other things, he discovered the Kotzebue Sound in Northwest Alaska.
• Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, a natural scientist, who participated in Kotzebue’s second voyage and contributed significant knowledge about the fauna of Alaska. 
• Karl Ernst von Baer who explored Arctic environments in Northern Russia and the island of Novaya Zemlya, and, among much else, contributed early knowledge on glaciers and permafrost.
• Adam Johann von Krusenstern, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth from 1803-06, along the way establishing a fur trade with Russian America (now Alaska). 

It was these explorers who made the group of Estonian entrepreneurs invest in a yacht with a steel hull that they named Admiral Bellinghausen and start their polar voyages in cooperation with the Estonian Maritime Museum.

“In 2019, Estonia decided to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the Antarctic continent. So, to honor him, we decided to recreate almost the same trip 200 years later,” said Maris Pruuli.

Surpassed only by “MasterChef”

This nine-month-long voyage to Antarctica included Maris, Tiit Pruuli, leader of the expedition, several Estonian seamen and 20 Estonian scientists. It also included a camera crew, and the trip was subsequently turned into a TV-show. The show became a great success, only surpassed in ratings by MasterChef, so it was decided to film another season.

“After the first trip, we had this brilliant boat, we had a very good crew, and we wanted to see more. So, we decided to look to the opposite side of the world: to the Arctic,” Maris Pruuli said.

They immediately set their sights on a journey through the Northwest Passage. But, due to travel restrictions during the Covid19-pandemic, their plans were postponed.

Instead, in 2021, they made a new season of their TV-show, traveling to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, East Greenland, the islands of Jan Mayen and Svalbard. Again, their travels were a great success among viewers back in Estonia.

They knew they had to go back for more. So, in 2023, Admiral Bellingshausen set sail for the third season of their show: a voyage through the Northwest Passage.

The passage through two passages

Admiral Bellinghausen left Estonia on the 21st of June, 2023. It then passed by West-Greenland, stopping in several locations along the coast, before making it to Upernavik in Northwest Greenland in mid-August.

From here, the passage of the Northwest Passage started. It took 36 days in total and was completed by mid-September when the yacht reached the Bering Strait. In North Alaska, the crew made a stop in the town of Kotzebue (also known as Qikiqtaġruk) whose namesake was born in Estonia.

Then finally, in mid-October, after passing through another sea passage in Western Canada, the Inside Passage, Admiral Bellinghausen’s voyage ended in Seattle in the United States.

“The coast of British Columbia is absolutely beautiful, so it didn’t matter much that we had another 3000 miles to go after completing our goal. We were joking that it was a special prize for us that we got to pass through another waterway, the Inside Passage, after already having completed the Northwest passage,” Maris Pruuli said.

The Scott Polar Research Institute keeps track of all transits through the Northwest Passage, starting with the first passage by Roald Amundsen in 1903-1906. At the time of the last update by the end of 2022, 351 ships had made the journey. During 2023 some dozens of ships completed the passage, Pruuli estimates, meaning that Admiral Bellinghausen came through as around number 400 or less in the row of icebreakers, coastguard and cruise ships. Approximately half of all the ships that have ever passed the passage have been sailing yachts.  

“The fact that so few sailboats have done it since Amundsen did it in 1903-1906 means that it was quite a challenge,” Maris Pruuli said.

Human and animal highlights

When asked for highlights from their journey, she points to one that involves animals and one that involves humans. The animal highlight with beluga whales and polar bears is described above. But the human one was just as meaningful to Maris and the crew.

It took place in the settlement of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and involved a meeting with elderly Inuits.

“They were from a generation that still remember the time when they lived on sea ice and in igloos. When speaking about those times, they really started to shine, and we felt privileged to be able to hear it from the people who actually experienced it,” Maris Pruuli said.

Sailing school in Northern Estonia

And although the two first seasons of their show have been successful, and the third one is expected to be too, the owners of the ship have no plans for another season.

“We think that we have done almost everything we can with our gorgeous ship. So, in fact, we think we are ready to sell it. We have done everything in the Polar regions that we have been able to dream of,” Maris Pruuli said.

Maris Pruuli will also publish a book on their voyage through the Northwest Passage, and when that is out, the couple plans to concentrate on a small sailing school they are running in Northern Estonia. 

“It has been our aim to bring these remote parts of the world closer to Estonians. I think that people are happier when they have a wider outlook on the world. That goes for our crew  and hopefully our viewers,” Maris Pruuli said.

“The idea of ‘getting richer in knowledge’ came up in a meeting we had in Nuuk, and I absolutely love that idea. I think that might be the aim of why you do things,” she said.

Ole Ellekrog, PolarJournal

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