When we awoke on National Geographic Explorer this morning, we were surrounded by beautiful fog continuously rolling in around us! Just when we thought the weather would thwart our plans, the winds blew in and patches of blue sky and sunshine peeked through enough for the natural history staff to send out a scouting boat!

The morning continued to clear as we bundled up and climbed into Zodiacs to explore the glacier carved fjord. Andreas, our expedition leader, spotted a polar bear high up on the hill, our first polar bear of the trip!

We headed back to the ship, and as we sailed out of Sir Charles Francis Hall Bay, we found two more polar bears! Captain Yuri expertly navigated slowly forward using the ship’s forward-facing sonar to allow us to approach one of the bears safely in the uncharted bay.

What a great, bear-filled day we had in Nunavut, Arctic Canada!