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I have enjoyed travelling ever since I was a boy and went on my first proper journey, from Glasgow to Blackpool. Once I'd reached the Golden Mile, I thought I'd ended up on the dark side of the Moon. Although I sound very Scottish and behave in a Scottish way, I am a world citizen.

In travelling to the top of the world via the fabled Northwest Passage I was not only making a unique journey but also living out some boyhood dreams - before I get too old. For centuries the Northwest Passage has been icebound but these days, just for a few weeks in the summer, the ice melts.

That means that loafers like me are given a wee window of opportunity to follow some of the most extraordinary men in history on what was once their quest for the holy grail of world exploration - plus all the romantics and nutters: people with broken hearts or hoping to fall in love.

Amy Lame: bear spotting in the Canadian Arctic

City girl and comedien Amy Lame is won over by the plight of the polar bear; plus see a slideshow of her close encounter

• A husky race across Alaska

• Dances with grizzlies

BACKGROUND

• Afloat on an Arctic cruise adventure

• The growth of Arctic cruising

• The melting Arctic

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• Canada's new food frontier

• Ten reasons to visit Nova Scotia

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Related Internet Links

• Read more articles in our Canada travel section

Related Links

• The growth of Arctic cruising

One of the highlights of my trip was the Auyuittuq National Park, Nunavut. The landscape of this national park, carved by the last Ice Age two million years ago, was sensational. Holy Mother of God, I felt like I was in The Lord of the Rings. This was a miraculously wonderful place, so pristine, and yet it only had something like 600 visitors a year.

Before I even got to the heart of it I had to trek miles up a valley towards the mountains. In the retelling it will be much more. It'll stretch to 25 or 30 miles - who knows? Then there is the story of how I broke my stick. In truth, I snapped it in the river between two boulders, but in legend it could have been in a polar bear fight or I could have wrestled with a walrus.

Perhaps I went to put my foot on a stone in the river and the stone looked up at me with two wild and vicious eyes. I could see the tusks sticking down. I had to thrust with all my weight to save the rest of the lads - although I was on my own, you understand.

That trek along the ancient riverbed was brilliant. I loved the way the clouds hung below the mountains at the end of the glen. (Well, strictly speaking, it was called a fjord in those parts, but it's a glen where I come from.) This was superb country, although I found some of the stony riverbeds tricky to navigate. I've seen enough rivers to last me the rest of my days.

I will never again be able to listen to Jimmy Cliff singing Many Rivers to Cross. Despite trying to look elegant and cool, I ended up on my arse in one of them and gave my feet a soaking. Pulling my boots off, I engaged in an old Scots custom - The Wringing of the Socks.

This was true wilderness and one of the most unspoilt, unexplored, spectacular places on Earth. I could hear the tributes as I crossed it: “Connolly of the Great Outdoors, explorer and hiker, scared of nothing, boldly stepped into the wilderness, caring not for life or limb. A bear jumped out from behind a rock, but he had his trusty aerosol with him. No bear dared come within ten feet.”

There was a lodge in which visitors could sign a book. There was one really moving entry, about a fella called Philip Robinson who was killed on Mount Thor, which apparently has the tallest vertical face in the world and people come from all over just to climb it. His friends had built a cairn for him and they carried it up the mountain in a sort of pilgrimage.

One wrote: “This has been the hardest, most important journey I've ever done. Blood, sweat and tears, the weight of stone on our backs for a man I love. We set out... on a glorious day Sunday... We camped at the glacier river... the night was windy, terrifying next morning, felt bleak grey and empty without you. I wanted to hate that moment.

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