Just A Few Friends Out for A Cruise

The rich are different from you and me:

The forbidding Northwest Passage killed Sir John Franklin and confounded James Cook, but it appears to have been a breeze for a booze-laden Australian luxury yacht that sped through the High Arctic leaving behind a trail of illegal fireworks, paintballs and bounced cheques.

In early September, the Fortrus, a 34-meter, seven-stateroom luxury yacht anchored just outside Cambridge Bay, a Nunavut community of 1,500. The ship had been brought there by Paul McDonald, a 51-year-old resource tycoon from Noosa, Australia, who was leading the yacht on a circumnavigation of North America.