On board the 199-passenger Ultramarine, one travel writer found an enriching education in Inuit traditions and flavors.

So I aimed for one of the calves, which was still bigger than me.

I saw the opportunity to shoot, and the calf fell.

A hand pours sauce onto a dish of caribou and peas

Dry-salted caribou, a dish served on Quark Expeditions' Tundra to Table trips.Credit:Courtesy of Quark Expeditions

I hit the heart.

I was so happy.

But we didntjusttaste it.

Two people walk on a path beside glaciers in Greenland

Trekking near Ilulissat Icefjord, in western Greenland.Acacia Johnson/Courtesy of Quark Expeditions

Future itineraries will have chef-led foraging hikes and more interaction with Indigenous hunters and fishermen.

Every dish was carefully plated, with edible flowers and fresh herbs applied with tweezers.

Dinners werent the only way to connect with Inuit culture.

Seals and whales have been a winter survival source for the last twelve thousand years, Berthelsen explained.

We eat those things.

Its maybe special for many people, but its what we grew up with.

With few if any restaurants on shore, opportunities to taste traditional cuisine are even more elusive.

But food was still a source of connection and conversation.

At the sports hall, hunter and musician Aleqatsiaq Peary vividly detailed a walrus hunt on the winter ice.

The chefs immediately said yes.

The chefs offered compensation, but he refused.

I was almost crying, it was so beautiful, Siegstad told me afterward.

He said, Us Inuit have to stick together.