GREENLAND and Beyond — Peter Ralston, co-founder of the Island Institute and a Rockport-based photographer known for his evocative images of the coast, traveled way out of the Gulf of Maine last summer, stretching his eye to the Arctic and the famed Northwest Passage, that 900-mile sea route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Canadian Arctic.

It was a trip of epic proportions aboard Rosehearty, a 184-foot luxury sailing yacht owned by a friend of Ralston’s. The aluminum-hulled ketch, with its sturdy diesel engines and large sail plan, was built in 2006, and made for traveling the seas of the world.

“Environmental, ecological, societal, logistical and other conditions are rapidly and dramatically changing above the Arctic Circle and to no small degree these changes will affect Maine both short and long term,” said Ralston.

He chronicled every step and nautical mile of the trip. beginning with a five-hour hop in a private plane from Owl’s Head airport to several small fishing villages in southern Greenland , which hums under its Danish heritage. Colorful homes and boats, and a fishing culture of shrimp, cod and halibut fills Greenland’s southernmost waterfronts.

But the geological times are changing, with melting ice and the broader reach of global warming. Tourism is actively growing, as those from the southern latitudes travel north to witness a retreating Arctic ice cover.

“People are coming in droves,” said Ralston, “to see for themselves what is taking place up there; that and for the immense beauty of it all.’”

So in late July he and six others — along with his three cameras — joined Rosehearty, awaiting them in Greenland, and steamed north up the west coast to their northernmost Greenland port, Ilulissat, home of the world’s fastest moving glacier.

After several days of exploration there, Rosehearty headed west into Baffin Bay, toward the Canadian archipelago that comprises the route of the Northwest Passage.

 “You sense and know from paying attention that it is all melting fast,” said Ralston. “But seeing the big ice of Greenland makes it all the more personally real and pressing an issue.”

Ralston will be presenting a portfolio of photos from the trip on Oct. 20, at the Rockport Opera House main hall upstairs, as part of the Rockport Public Library’s seafaring series. The evening begins at 7 p.m.

Ralston’s photographs document the austerity of the landscape, the land of the midnight sun. With the summer light, the whales were leaping, and the ice/seal deprived polar bears were roaming. The Inuit fishing villages were modest hives of activity and there Ralston learned, and will share, how the Canadian government has treated its indigenous people.

The Inuit grocery stores, with goods flown in for resupply, were generally familiar in scope, albeit with Oreos selling for $14.95 a box. Aside from fishing craft in Greenland, only three commercial ships were encountered during the Rosehearty’s Arctic travels, as well as two eco-cruise ships.

The geography of the polar desert is bone dry (6.5 inches of annual precipitation in some villages) at 600 miles above the tree line, and yet, there are arctic poppies blooming in high summer.

There are haunting relics from early explorations, and on Beechey Island, there are contemporary sealed metal tubes containing messages, much like the practice of sailors of centuries past.

At one point Rosehearty passed above the most northerly tip of North America, which ends as a gravel bar at Point Zenith.

And yet, despite the remoteness of the latitude, the melting ice has opened the waters to marine traffic — cargo ships, cruise ships, sailing yachts, fishing boats. The northern world is changing fast, and Ralston has captured a landscape in transition. 

“Climate change is very real, the core questions are to what extent are we actually culpable (there’s a significant range offered by scientists) as well as what can we as a species do about our contribution to climate change,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that it’s a ‘vanishing’ landscape, but there’s no doubt that this is a rapidly changing environment/ecosystem. There are many lessons to be learned up north that can be applied to our own changing Gulf of Maine and the fisheries that support so many here.”

See more photos and read the entries from the Rosehearty journey at  syrosehearty.com