This morning we once again awoke to the soothing sound of our expedition leader Luchos’ voice over the public address speaker in our cabins. This morning’s wake up announcement felt a little different than yesterdays, our bodies and minds a little more drowsy than usual. When we checked our watches the reason for this drowsiness became abundantly clear… it was two in the morning!
The ship was currently navigating the edge of the Arctic sea ice, well and truly above 80 degrees north, just 900 km from the North Pole and the sun had once again failed to set below the horizon. Directly in front of National Geographic Explorer was a truly rare sight, worthy of this particularly early wakeup call—a polar bear mother and her three cubs were playing under the midnight sun.
As the ship slowly approached closer to this exceptional spectacle you could hear the excited whispering and the click of camera shutters reach a crescendo. This family of polar bears seemed adamant to appear on the cover of National Geographic magazine as they approached even closer to the ship and proceeded to pose for all our cameras, I swear one cub even did a brilliant ‘blue steel’ pose that would have impressed the great Derek Zoolander!
The show did not stop there, we watched in awe as the mother discovered a seal hiding in an ice den below her paws. Quickly the mother rose up into a standing position and then pounced down with all her strength onto the ice den smashing the roof inwards and waking up the sleeping seal beneath. The mother polar bear was momentarily distracted by one of her cubs and the dazed seal seized this opportunity to slide into the ocean and the safety it afforded.
The mother not wanting to waste this opportunity then began to teach her three inquisitive cubs the technique she had used to break into the seal’s ice den, a valuable lesson that would ensure they did not go hungry on the ever-shrinking Arctic sea ice they called home. If you thought polar bear cubs looked cute, the English language lacks the vocabulary to describe what we saw next…
Three adorable mini polar bears began rearing up on their hind legs, just like their mother did, but then falling flat on their face instead of breaking through the ice as they lacked the body weight and strength to break the thick sea ice below them.
After a few hours of precious sleep we wearily stumbled into breakfast and were immediately re-energized by the gorgeous smile of our Swedish Chef Sophie offering us fresh hot waffles and maple syrup. No sooner had we finished our delicious breakfast we were once again called outside to watch even more polar bears prowling the sea ice under a now gorgeous blue sky.
Once we had taken our obligatory 100 photos of this huge male polar bear (who could have quite possibly been the father of the cubs we saw before) we retired to the lounge to listen to our Norwegian naturalist Carl-Eric and his fascinating presentation on the northern jewel of the Norwegian crown—the Svalbard Archipelago.
This presentation was directly followed by another intriguing presentation, this time from our naturalist Magnus, the topic—polar bears. It was great to hear Magnus describe in detail the events of last night and the unique behaviors we were lucky enough to witness.
After a quick power nap and another scrumptious lunch we were once again ready to go ashore and explore this Arctic wonderland at our afternoon destination of Sorgfjorden.
Translated from Norwegian to ‘Fjord of Grief’ in English, it is named after its rich history of tragic events that have occurred in the area. From whalers been stuck in the pack ice, to European nations battling for supremacy of the northern sea, many battles against the elements, and other ships have been fought here—with countless sailors losing their lives in the process.
We transferred to shore in the Zodiacs and were immediately conscious of the magnificent inhospitable landscape that surrounded us. Huge peaks towered above us in every direction and the ground was littered with a plethora of different flora.
On our hikes we were lucky enough to encounter many bird species including: barnacle goose, common eider, purple sandpiper, arctic skua, glaucous gull, arctic tern, and snow buntings.
What a truly amazing Arctic day and after a well-deserved sleep tonight we can’t help but wonder what amazing experiences await us tomorrow on our Arctic expedition.
