Springtime in Svalbard, a beautiful white world, where the mountains slowly turn from completely white pillows, to rugged black mountain peaks.
We are on our fifth day of the expedition and we are planning a landing at a trapper’s hut called Mushamna for the afternoon. While the sun is shining, we are scouting the area of the hut.
But sometimes things don’t go as planned and have to be changed last minute.
We are almost heading to the little bay on the right side of the hut to drop the anchor of MS Quest for the afternoon activity, when suddenly we spot a light-yellow dot close to the cabin. We have to be sure, because when there is a bear ashore, we cannot do a landing. So quickly all guides are focused with binoculars on the same spot on the shoreline. And yes, it’s a polar bear walking along the ice wall at the shoreline. So no landing at Mushamna and be flexible.
We keep the regulated distance and watch the bear for a while, along with all the guests from the decks. We watch the bear pass by and head into the snow in the distance to the right.
Now that the bear has disappeared into the distance, it is still a beautiful, sunny afternoon – and there is still time to get into the Zodiacs and enjoy the lovely weather outside.
We get ready and enter the Zodiacs for a Zodiac cruise in the bay and towards the trapper’s hut.
We see a few ptarmigans on the snow. Although they are difficult to spot with their white colour, their shadow gives them away.
Since the bear had been walking close along the shoreline, we got to take a closer look at some of the freshly made tracks. We could even see that the tracks were clearly from a male polar bear, even though we had already seen when it passed us that the bear was a male. You could clearly see that the longer guard hairs of the male’s paws had brushed over the snow as he walked. Fresh tracks that big are amazing to look at and give you a real sense of the polar bear’s size.
A beautiful afternoon spent first at a distance, but later it felt like a close encounter – even without the bear present.
Please note: Depending on the lens used for a photo or video shot an animal may appear to be closer than it is. We always follow strict wildlife guidelines to ensure that we do not cause any disturbance.
