Hellesundet Passage & Eastern Svalbard
At just after 7am, we entered the narrow passage of Hellesundet, at the northern end of Storfjord, which divides islands off the coast of Olav V Land, on Spitsbergen, from the island of Barentsoya (Barent’s Island). The fog of yesterday had given way to strong, bright sunlight and a clear sky – the heat on the bow of the ship contradictory to our latitude, and the ice in the narrow channel.
This was to be a day of working our way through the pack-ice, looking for wildlife, with no particular plan to go ashore. In the mid-morning, a female polar bear and two cubs-of the-year were spotted on a large, high-sided ice-floe. As we made our cautious approach, the fore deck, bridge and balcony beneath it filled with guests staring expectantly ahead of the ship at the cream-colored spots on the ice as they morphed into bears.
Seeing a female bear with first year cubs is always a priority among guests and staff alike, and it causes a big excitement on the ship. As we closed the gap between us and the bears, the sense of anticipation was palpable - silence, save for the occasional whisper and the soft sounds of people gently jostling for a good position.
Stopping about 150 yards off, we had a wonderful view of the female bear and her six-month old cubs moving about on the surface of the floe. The cubs mimicked their mother’s movements, as they stopped to stare at the strange beast that had slid from their familiar world of water and ice to stare at them. One of the cubs stood on its hind legs to get a better look, already capitalizing on one of the key traits that differentiates bears from wolves and other wild dogs.
At one point, the mother bear looked as though she might lower herself from the high lip of the ice floe, into the water, but she didn’t, perhaps assessing that following her might have been difficult for the cubs.
After some wonderful photo-opportunities, the National Geographic Explorer gently began to back away, and even before we had turned back to our course, the cubs had begged their mother into a sitting position and were suckling from her.
Later in the afternoon, we spotted a number of bears on fast ice, deciding that the best viewing opportunity was four bears in close proximity to what appeared to be the carcass of a seal. As we approached, we identified a female bear with two yearling cubs, and a young adult male who was too close to the cubs and the carcass for her to tolerate. He retreated to behind a snow bank about 150 yards from the carcass, which the cubs then began to feed on, while the female bear placed herself midway between the cubs and the male bear. In so doing, she was allowing them to feed alone while also standing sentry in the event of another approach by the male bear.
For his part, he kept his distance for the next 20 minutes or so, but then began to wander closer to the cubs again. The female bear, who seemed very relaxed, and even had her back to the male, sensed his presence, got quickly to her feet and then retreated towards the cubs, leading them away from the seal carcass with her, and out of potential harm’s way.
The intricate detail of all these behaviors and interactions was wonderful to watch and provided all of us with an amazing amount of information about the nature of polar bears. In truth, taken as a whole, today’s observations were quite exceptional.
Later, after dinner, we went out on the bow to see the Al Austfonna ice sheet – a 75-foot wall of smooth glacial ice, punctuated by waterfalls carrying its runoff to the sea. The ice wall snaked away in either direction and appeared somewhat surreal – like a barrier at the end of the world, or the ramparts of some forbidden kingdom of ice and snow.
