Let me paint you another picture for this one. It was almost 2am “ship time” (mid-day local time), and everyone is out on the deck because the Sun is out (which has been rare). Everyone’s fingers are about to freeze off, but no one wants to leave the view of jagged piles and smooth panes of solid white ice under a clear blue sky. It’s like a combination of a National Geographic centerfold, the ice planet of Hoth from Star Wars, and some fairy tale land. And of course, everyone is hoping to spot polar bears, the “holy grail” of Arctic animal sightings. As the ship slowly cracks its way through ice, we see footprints headed in the same direction as the ship. We try to keep the tracks in sight, and then someone says “I think I see two dots…” Everyone’s binoculars and cameras point in that direction, and then the dots start to move. As we get closer, there are two polar bears. (Insert here sounds of happiness and excitement from everyone.) The bears are still a ways off, but we can tell they’re curious about the big red noisy thing passing by them. They stare and investigate for a minute, and then meander off to blend into the white.
Later, mid-afternoon ship time (evening local time), we were all quietly working in the common room, and an announcement came over the intercom system in Russian. One of the Russians in the room says “Polar bear! Stern!” MASS HYSTERIA. Everyone grabbed their cameras (we all seem to carry cameras and laptops on us at all times) and ran. Literally. Coat or not. We got to the stern of the boat, along with some of the crew and scientists who appeared from the labs, and again we found the movement of white bear on white snow, walking around and staring back at us (in a foggy, cloudy sky this time). I think most will continue to sprint outside whenever that announcement is made.
What causes the aurora borealis? Have you seen these auroras?
Hi Amanda, good question, the aurora borealis occurs when particles from the Sun interact with particles in the Earth’s atmosphere near the poles. We have not seen the aurora yet, because in the summer, it’s never dark enough to see it since the Sun is up nearly all the time. But as we get back to Norway at the end of September, it will start to get sort of dark enough to see I think, so we can keep fingers crossed!
Polar bears!!!!
Ludus, You sound as excited as we were!
Hi, Lindsay, lucky you are to take the pictures! Congratulations! They don’t look feel bothered. There’s a question from 12-year-old Maxim if bears meet many ships during a day or a week.
Hi Valentina, I’m sure Maxim is excited about polar bears, because everyone on the ship was excited too! We have not seen any bears that are close to the ship, and over the course of the expedition we have probably seen maybe 6 bears – they are hard to see, because they are white, and the ice is white!
Wonderful pictures of bears and sun !
Good question of Maxim. We heard at the news that some boats ( cargo) go throw the Arctic to have a shorter way to travel.
Christine, thanks, I love those pictures of the polar bears and the Sun! Polar bears are such a rare sight to see, and the Sun has been behind clouds for almost our whole trip, so to see polar bears and Sun on the same day was really exciting! Yes, some ships are starting to go through the Arctic as a shorter travel route, but that is definitely only possible in the summer. Because we are on a ship that can go through ice 2 meters thick, and even we can’t make it through some of the ice!
Hi I’m a student from L.E.O.M have you ever had an up close experience with a polar bear? Do you study them or there habitat? How many do you see regularly? Thank You
Dear Ian, we have seen a few polar bears (maybe 6 altogether) on our expedition, but usually only a few people at a time see 1 or 2 bears at a time, because they are usually far away, and they are white, and the ice is white. So you have to be lucky! But I was lucky enough to see two of them one day. It was so exciting! We are studying their habitat, because they live on the ice, and we are studying the ice. They use ice as hunting grounds to find food in the ocean, so less ice makes it harder for them to survive.