Spitsbergen - Realm of the Polar Bear

The island of Spitsbergen, the largest of the Svalbard archipelago, is a dramatic land of huge glaciers, snow covered mountains and steep-sided fjords, separated from the North Pole by a mere 965 kilometres of frozen ocean. This is the true ‘High Arctic’, an extreme land gripped by ice for over eight months of the year and by darkness for over four. Winter begins to loosen its grasp in May, however, and during the brief Arctic summer Spitsbergen is transformed into a land of perpetual daylight, covered by a flower-filled tundra grazed by herds of Reindeer. Towering sea-cliffs crowded with millions of seabirds guard the land, while offshore lies a crazy paving of pack-ice upon which Polar Bears hunt and Walruses laze.

Naturetrek has been chartering ships to explore these wonderful islands since 2006 and since 2019 we have been chartering the 53-passenger MS Quest. Free from the shackles of having to visit non-wildlife sites, our cruise will only include the very best of Svalbard’s wildlife and scenery. Our holiday is timed for late June/early July when the sun never sets and the pack-ice has usually melted sufficiently to allow our ship to explore the fjords, towering cliffs and tundra of Spitsbergen and Nordaustlandet. We begin, however, with a spectacular flight over the ice-dotted Arctic Ocean to Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard. Here we will board our vessel and begin our voyage through an icy wilderness almost entirely devoid of human life. Birdlife on the other hand is abundant, and even in Longyearbyen itself Snow Buntings fly around the rooftops and Purple Sandpipers pick for insects along the meltwater streams. Blue phase Fulmars wheel around our anchored vessel together with Glaucous Gulls and Arctic Terns, the latter fresh from their ‘other summer’ in the Antarctic. Leaving Longyearbyen we will head north, past groups of Little Auks, Black Guillemots, Puffins and Brünnich’s Guillemots which skitter away across the water’s surface as we steam past, whilst the occasional Bearded or Ringed Seal may pop a head out of the water to watch us motor by; all this to a back-drop of spectacular jagged mountains.

Our voyage will take us into glass-like fjords backed by huge glaciers, such as the Monaco and Hamilton Glacier, and on to polar deserts where only a few lichens and other low-lying plants eke out an existence in the almost waterless environment. One advantage of travelling aboard an ice-strengthened vessel is that we can make our way deep into the pack-ice, the summer haunt of the true king of the Arctic, the magnificent Polar Bear. A meeting with a Polar Bear is one of those heart-stopping experiences you never forget, made all the better by seeing them in their own realm wandering around on the ice floes with pack-ice stretching to the horizon. This ice is also home to the huge Walrus which may be seen hauled out on the ice alongside its smaller cousins, the Bearded, Ringed and Harp Seals. Here too we will look for the ghostly white Ivory Gull and, if fortunate, maybe even a Ross’s Gull as these begin to pass through Svalbard in July.

Returning to the coastline, we will board inflatable Zodiacs to view the towering cliff faces that are home to thousands of Brünnich’s Guillemots. We will also visit colonies of Little Auks where thousands of these tennis ball-sized auks wheel around the mountain-tops like mosquitoes over a pond. Always on the look-out for a meal, Arctic Foxes patrol the base of these colonies, whilst out on the tundra Brent, Pink-footed and Barnacle Geese all breed alongside King Eider, Grey Phalarope, Red-throated Diver, Long-tailed Duck, Purple Sandpiper, Arctic and Long-tailed Skuas and Ptarmigan. Of these breeding birds, it is only the latter that also braves the harsh Arctic winter.

Although primarily a wildlife voyage, we will have opportunities to learn about Spitsbergen’s fascinating human history, much of which is closely tied to the very animals and birds we have come to view. Abandoned whaling stations such as the 17th century Smeerenburg (Blubber Town) stand testament to the impact of early whalers on the islands, whilst the remains of the camps of early explorers such as the Swedish balloonist André remind us of Svalbard’s appeal to past adventurers.

Once back at Longyearbyen a spectacular flight over huge glaciers, braided river valleys and snow-capped peaks will bring us back to mainland Norway, from where we must continue our journey south away from the roof of the world and back home.