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Travel Corner

  • October 2024
  • Mei-Mei Chan Kirk

Exploring the Arctic in Search of Polar Bears

Since my retirement in 2015, I have embraced “carpe diem” with a passion, checking off my bucket list one by one. In May, I was thrilled to observe polar bears in the Arctic with Quark Expeditions. My daughter and I happened upon a last-minute deal and signed up for our first expedition voyage, and our first very cold weather journey.
We boarded the beautiful Ultramarine, launched in 2021, in Longyearbyen, Norway. It’s the northernmost inhabited town in the world, on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, just 800 miles from the North Pole.
Over twelve days, we saw seven polar bears, oodles of walruses, four Arctic foxes, some seals, a large pod of beluga whales, herds of reindeer, and seabirds galore. We walked on frozen sea ice in front of an ancient glacier and were among the first to do so this season as ships can’t get through until the ice thaws. Our guides said this ice would be gone in a week.

And we sailed north until we hit the Arctic pack ice. Around midnight on May 15, under the bright midnight sun, our ship was the furthest north of any in the world, only 635 miles from the North Pole. It was bitterly cold at seventeen degrees with twenty-five mph winds, but we were jubilant at being at the top of the world, imagining carving through the ice, going straight on until morning.
With no pollution, lights or crowds, the sense of untouched solitude and bleak tranquility was surreal. We marveled at vast, pristine landscapes, snow-clad mountains, sparkling glaciers, and fascinating sheets of ice that soon will be gone—faster each year.
Every day, we would don our many layers, and bop in and out of Zodiac rafts for cruising or shore landings or hikes. The daily anticipation of discovery was exhilarating and exhausting. Each night, we would learn about mammals, birds, geology and more. Expedition leader Ryan McDevitt (from St. Petersburg, Florida!) would give a debrief and the plans for the next day based on weather, winds, and ice conditions.
Then we would “pivot” as needed. One day we planned to visit walruses at Moffen Island, but while Ryan was scouting, a large walrus swam out and swung his tusks at the Zodiac raft! The risk was too high so we did not visit. Another day, we left a large guillemot bird colony at Alkefjellet early because of high winds. On our second day out, we were waiting our turn to walk on a glacier when called back to the ship: a polar bear had been sighted!
By her smaller size and monitoring collar, the staff knew it was a female. This bear had just taken down a reindeer so we got to enjoy her for about three hours as she gnawed, wandered and rolled like a pooch. From a half mile away (ships can’t get very close to land due to regulations and shallow shoals) she appeared fuzzy and cute!
Marine mammal specialist Grigory Tsidulko said there are may be 20,000 polar bears worldwide with 300-400 in the Svalbard archipelago and up to 3,600 from Norway through the Russian region. There hasn’t been a coordinated survey since 2004, when the count was 22,000 to 24,000.
Bears are struggling as ice melts more rapidly and frequently. It’s more tiring for them to hunt seals on land and water, and that’s why some are resorting to hunting reindeer— which provide very little blubber for the effort.
In all, we saw seven “binocular bears”—two were really just specks. But we got to track two for more than four hours as they walked steadily with purpose, climbed rocks, slipped on ice mounds, swam doggy style, eyed reindeer, and waited patiently at ice holes for a seal to surface, ignoring the foxes walking by.
The hope is that a polar bear will stroll on ice toward your ship for a close encounter. Alas, this never happened for us. But we still feel so fortunate, and privileged, to have seen these majestic beasts in their natural habitat.
The details:

Tourism changes: Starting in 2025, Norway is imposing
more stringent restrictions to manage tourism, which will
impact wildlife encounters.
Interested in more? Check out our top photos: https://
photos.app.goo.gl/nrM7aE43uvYzTVGu6

Travel: We flew to Oslo, Norway, onto Tromso, then Longyearbyen.

Weather: Usually about 25-35 degrees and sunny, with some snow, and some days of high winds 20 mph and up.

Garb: Quark gifts you a “free” polar jacket and provides excellent knee-high rubber boots. We were glad to have invested in extra wool layers and face coverings.

Onboard: It’s a luxury expedition ship! We had 128 crew and 178 passengers (200 max), with about a third Americans and a third repeat Quark guests. The expert expedition staff of twenty-five were fabulous.

Zodiacs: These motorized rafts are used frequently for cruising or shore landings. The loading platforms are easily accessed and there are a lot of helping hands.