Woodfjord and Liefdefjord, NW Spitsbergen
Through the silver light of the daylong night we round the northern tip of Svalbard and enter the wide gape of Woodfjord. 0530. The Naturalists are already up and vigilant. Telescopes swing slowly to track the shore. Fingers fine-tune the focus. A barren flat landscape, strewn with rocks, devoid of life. But is that a rock? It is grey and unmoving – yes, a cold boulder in the dark purple tundra of Reindeer Flats. What about that one? Creamy white, and unmoving. Hmm. Probably a rock. We’ll check again in 5 minutes. 10 minutes later it has not shifted: still still. Scan the shore, scope swings back to the creamy rock. Still as still as before. Obviously a rock: curse the glaciers which have carelessly scattered pale bear-sized rocks all over the red sandstone terraces of these flats. Try another rock. Give up after 20 minutes, but what?! That original rock just lifted its head! Yo! It is a bear, first of the trip. 0645 and the call is out: “Bear on the starboard shore.”
We mount the five flights of stairs to the bridge. Now we are panting and excited. Where is the bear?. Aaah, there! Now outside, and down the stair to the bow. Shhh, try not to whoop or wheeze….Now there’s a wind on the sweated brow and suddenly we feel cold. Back inside to pick up a coat, back to the railing. Now we sight a second bear, loping along the rock terraces, that easy, swinging stride of the athlete. A minke whale surfaces along the shore near him. Two fin whales are blowing on the other side of the fjord, but this is a bear day, we are not to be distracted. Now the bear is sniffing the ground, now it is grazing – probably eating the creamy flowers of Mountain Avens which adorn these slopes. Then it sprawls on the flowering tundra and relaxes, once more a buff rock in a dark, mottled landscape.
On again along the shore, as we approach the low flat islands of Andonøya, (“Duck Islands”). But the keen eyes of our Norwegian trapper, Kenneth Monsen, have already locked onto three moving blobs on the largest island. Yes! A female and her two tiny cubs. This is a huge privilege to see a young family out for a summer picnic in this remote archipelago, snacking on eiders and tern chicks. After 10 minutes the bears take to the water, a tiny convoy with mum in front and her two cubs close astern. These flat islands don’t look quite so barren now: we find a sheltered anchorage in their lee and lower Zodiacs and kayaks. Once on the water, we scan the Duck Islands. Not a duck in sight. Flat, featureless and lifeless. Let us take a look anyway. We follow the shore: suddenly, a splash beside us, a plunging kittiwake is emerging from ripples with a good fish in its beak. Then a hue and cry as terns and more kittiwakes suddenly appear from nowhere to prolong the plunder. Arctic terns suddenly lift off from nests as a pirate passes: the sleek silhouette of an Arctic Skua. Along the beach crest stranded logs that have sailed all the way from Siberia. In a lagoon, a Red Phalarope pirouettes like a ballerina, stirring up food from the bottom. Then we notice a fretted iceberg bristling with kittiwakes: we drift closer to admire their jet –black eyes and lemon yellow beaks; they preen as they swop fishing stories. A call on the radio: “King Eiders in the next bay.” What a prize, this puffin of the duck race is the loveliest of its tribe: immaculate black and white dinner jacket, blue grey crown and brilliant orange and red face mask.
As the day continues we have logged one giant glacier, 7 polar bears and a thousand minor miracles. But the strangest is the last: during dinner we pass the 80¢ªN latitude and approach a low gravel atoll in the mist: Moffen Island. On its shingle beach there lie sprawled 80 gigantic male walruses, the lumpen proletariat bristling with ivory tusks. Just off the beach another 30 animals sound and wallow, snorting loudly as they surface: Hval-ros, the “whale-horse” of legend. Stranded giants among the Siberian logs and scattered driftwood: over 100 walrus and not a carpenter in sight. Round every corner another surprise…..How many treasures this fragile, frozen world holds, how many intricate lives depend on the cold Arctic Ocean. Before we came, how could we ever have guessed that this barren landscape would shelter so many hidden wonders? The wonderfulness of the wilderness.
