POLITICS AND SCIENCE on the Healy are serious, but life on board is nice, a far cry from conditions that existed when European sailors conducted their centuries-long search for the Northwest Passage. Back then crews—even in summer—died of cold or starvation, or ate each other after abandoning ship and walking off.

In the 19th century, one British sailor wrote that each time his cabin door opened, frigid air flooded in, "causing condensation … we slept in a miniature ice palace … the outer side of my bunk was a sheet of ice which melted when I got into bed … the upper part of my blanket was sodden while the bottom half was like a small ice floe."

My cabin, however, is temperature-controlled, with a shared bathroom and ample room for three. The Healy weighs 16,000 tons and stretches 420 feet, carrying a crew of 80 and up to 51 passengers, usually scientists or tech-support staff. One morning I take a walk around its decks. Up on the bridge, overhead screens show our location, water depth, route, and the shape of the sea bottom. Below, in the mess, I enjoy a tasty breakfast: bacon, eggs to order, cereal, fresh fruit, and coffee. I check out the library, workout area, coffee bar. On flat-screen TVs, I watch the Olympics.

The Healy is so pleasant that Coast Guard sailors walk around in logo T-shirts that depict cute polar bears eyeing the ship, and most sailors I speak to want to remain on the ship during their next tour of duty. Still, newcomers must undergo hazing after crossing the Arctic Circle for the first time. The "bluenoses" (their noses are literally painted blue) do push-ups on command and put on a goofy show in the hangar. Ceremonies culminate at 5 a.m. one day when the bluenoses parade around singing "YMCA," get blindfolded, and one by one are pushed into a vat of ice water.

"One of them tried to sneak up on me with a black mask on," says George Neokak. "I was gonna kick him, but he went away."

Five days out, George still hasn't seen a bowhead whale, and he's getting bored. He suspects that the warm temperatures have caused them to stay put in their summer feeding grounds. If the bowheads start their migration too late, winter ice could form off Barrow and block the Inupiat's hunting boats from reaching the whales, forcing the hunters to seek game inland. But inland temperatures are warmer, too, and in some places the ice isn't solid enough to walk on. George predicts that some inexperienced Inupiat will fall through freshwater ice and die of exposure.

The warm temperatures have created plenty of other dangers for Alaskans. Without sea ice to protect the shoreline, waves are crashing harder into coastal villages. Several Inupiat died this year when their boats were capsized by unprecedented swells. Alaska officials say they need to invest millions of dollars to shore up roads, airports, and bridges built on melting permafrost. Residents of Kivalina, a village on Alaska's northwest coast, filed suit in U.S. District Court in February against ExxonMobil and 23 other energy companies. They're attempting to link the conglomerates to the damage caused by global warming in the same way some cancer victims convinced juries that the tobacco giants were responsible for their health problems.

George once worked in the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay. He started college but quit to be with his father, who was dying of cancer in an Anchorage hospital. While there, says George, switching the subject to food, he ate in restaurants and got horrible stomach pains from eggplant parmigiana. He stopped experimenting with food after downing a jalapeño pepper in clam chowder. He prefers wild fare. He tells me you can cut fresh clams from a walrus's stomach, up to five gallons' worth, and eat them raw. He tells me about uraq, a delicacy made from seal flippers, and says the blubber of bearded seals makes an excellent dipping sauce. "On the ice, if you're hungry," he says, lifting binoculars to resume his search for bowheads, "you can eat the liver, brains, or kidneys of a seal raw."