I’m about to take my first sip of espresso when the announcement comes over the PA in Lucho’s smooth Ecuadorian accent: “ladies and gentlemen, the sharp eyes of our captain have spotted our first bear.” These aren’t just bears (though I suspect you could say that about most bears, if you’ve never seen one), they’re polar bears in Arctic Svalbard.
I am onboard the National Geographic Explorer, a passenger expedition cruise ship that cruises the Arctic and the Antarctic. I’ve only been in Svalbard for a few days; we embarked the ship in Longyearbyen just two days ago. Because I work (2017 edit: worked) for Lindblad Expeditions, I’ve already seen bears in Alaska. Brown bears, though, not polar bears. This is exciting, so I set my coffee down, grab my camera, and head for the bow.
polar bears in arctic svalbard
It’s still a ways off, and at first I can’t see it among all of the ice floes that litter our path. But soon I am handed a pair of binoculars and I spot him. For a little while, his bulky form is obscured by another ice floe and I hand the binoculars back, not letting my eyes leave where I last saw him. As we get closer he comes into full view, and he has a surprise – his lunch. A bearded seal, we are told, though there is some whispered discussion as to whether it’s actually a walrus because it’s so large.
I watch, camera at hand, as he takes hunks of meat from the body of the seal. Gulls and arctic terns swarm over. Some are brave enough to share the ice floe with the bear, waiting their turn at the blubberful red meat.
The closer we get, the better I can see him, and his reflection, with my naked eye. But we begin to stress him out. We are this massive steel hulk bearing down on his serene idyll, and his pacing increases. He moves from one edge of the ice floe to the other, lifting his nose to the air, smelling, I think, our own lunch on board. Gulls squawk, circling the floe, and within a few minutes they are alone. He has wandered to the edge of the ice and without a backward glance at his kill (although he does give us a slight side-eye ruing glance), he abandons the carcass and slides gracefully into the arctic water. He disappears for a brief second, but soon I can see his ivory head and black snout sliding across the surface of the water as his large paws paddle toward an unknown destination.
[outside Hornsund, Svalbard, 4 June 2015]