Spitsbergen (Svalbard) is a Norwegian archipelago located between 78 and 80 degrees north latitude, 1,000 km (620 mi) away from the North Pole.
Last summer we visited Alaska and were greatly impressed by the nature of North America (Alaska: bears and whales).
This year we decided to discover the north of the European continent and purchased tickets for a 7-day cruise of Spitsbergen north coast on board the expedition ship “Plancius”, owned by Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions.
The cruise dates were August 18-25, and it was the last Spitsbergen cruise that season – the next day after disembarkation the ship was leaving to Greenland.
The name of the cruise – Polar Bear Special – speaks for itself. The passengers were promised to see photogenic polar bears and we could watch those predators in their natural habitat.
In fact, Spitsbergen has more bears than it has humans (4,000 bears vs. 3,500 people) and the bears have been protected by law for 20 years. Killing a bear, even as an act of self-defense, leads to a very serious investigation by the local Chief who can press charges. For this reason, every time before letting passengers off the ship, a few guides cruise along the shores checking for suspicious white dots against tundra landscapes and hills. If a bear is spotted, docking is cancelled.
When we booked the cruise, we received a brochure with approximate cruise itinerary, however it changed all the time depending on the ice, the bears and so on. This was our actual itinerary.
The cruise turn-around port was Longyearbyen where we arrived from Oslo with a short layover in Tromso. The city’s main industries are high-quality coal production and tourism.
60% of Spitsbergen’s surface is covered by glaciers, the most photographed one is in Magdalena Fjord, where we arrived on the first day of the cruise.
Glaciers are everywhere – some of them are away from the water, some are falling into the fjords.
Glaciers in different weather.
Not far from Magdalena Fjord we saw a bear and its cub, and she lazily lay in the sun, not paying any attention to the crowd of tourists, who were seeing a polar bear in front of them for the first time.
The next day the Captain decided to sail north straight to the pack ice border. Pack ice is formed on the surface of the Arctic Ocean in winter and it partially melts during summer. This year the pack ice border moved further north, compared to the previous years, so the ship could reach 82 degrees 9 minutes north latitude before the ratio of ice and water reached 9/10, which is the limit for the class of ships such as “Plancius”.
The next day we saw an arctic desert – the annual rainfall there is the same as in Sahara desert (info and pictures provided by the guides).
The landscape is an impressive combination of cliffs, hills and plains covered by rocks and large pebbles. On the bare rocky plateau one can see the dark lichen and bunches of moss here and there – the ground beneath them is mostly fertilized by the animal corpses. During the hiking we came across a skull of an Arctic fox and a carcass of a Polar bear. After dinner in this fantastic place we went for a walk under the midnight sun.
By the morning our ship had reached the Phippsoya islands where we were supposed to get off to watch the large walrus colony – about 200 species, according to the guides. But as we were approaching the colony, we realized that we were not the only ones watching the walruses.
Usually, Polar bears feed on seals, but during the hungry season they may attack young walruses. Suddenly, the bear had decided to take a walk. And accidentally found himself close to the walrus colony. The walruses were not happy about it and we could see females and young walruses fleeing into the water, screaming.
The bear is confused.
Nervous males are excited to show the predator who is the boss of the beach. Oh boy, we’ll show you who’s boss!
Finally, the older walruses got involved. A couple of brontosauruses made some symbolic, but unambiguous, movements towards the bear.
They’ve surrounded him, the demons..
Me? No, I’m just passing by, not even hungry really…
So the ship turns south and docks in Raufjord with richer vegetation than in the north.
In addition to moss, one can find mushrooms (allegedly edible), the dwarf polar willow, and occasional blossoming shrubs.
The following stop is Ytre-Norskøya, the island known as a watch point for whalers in 17-18 century, who would track whales passing through the bay, kill them with spears (the whale would bleed out), drag them ashore and melt their fat.
There is also the Whaler Cemetery – about 160 graves. All of them were males under 30 years old, who died mostly of scurvy during unplanned long stays for winter (when ships just wouldn’t have come back to get them after summer season, nobody knows why). The graves in permafrost were shallow, so they had to cover the caskets with rocks to protect them from animals. Some of the coffins have been pushed up to the surface by the ground overtime.
Here we were also attacked by polar terns – little graceful birds with red beaks. They nest on the ground, have 2-3 chicks and hate strangers on their territory. They dive screaming, trying to bite the visitors’ highest points (usually the head, or the arm if you lift it).
Attack!! Ahhh!
Terns are quite unique birds. Out of all the species of bird they take the longest journey when migrating to the South Pole for the winter, covering the distance over 20,000 km only to come all the way back in March.
The further south we go, the more often we see beautiful bird colonies. In summer time over 30 kinds of birds come to Spitsbergen for nesting. Some of them leave by August.
But the primary habitants of the colony, such as seagulls, guillemots, black-legged kittiwakes (species in the gull family) are still here.
Puffin.
Snow Petrel.
Unfortunately, we didn’t see eiders as they had already left. By the way, hunters in Spitsbergen are allowed to collect eiderdown that is left after nesting. The remote islands of the archipelago are often visited by fur-bearing animal hunters – trappers. There are not many representatives of this once quite popular male profession left, as nowadays one cannot make a living off the Arctic fox fur or the eiderdown trade.
The trappers’ shack.
View from the window
The Arctic fox trap (the animal must be trapped very carefully not to damage the fur. The hunter puts up the trap wearing gloves that had been kept in a box with Snow grouse feathers to cover the human smell).
On our way back down past the island we witnessed an impressive hunt of humpback whales and finback whales. There must have been lots of fish as you could see the sea bubbling in multiple places at the same time. Doing synchronized jumps out of the water and flipping in the air were herds of dolphins, who weren’t really supposed to be this far north.
We counted about 10-12 whales. We had seen whales before in Alaska, but not so many together, in such an intense attack! A blue range of mountains strethced on the horizon, the sun shining to the right, the moon rising to the left – it was the last day of the polar summer.
On this occasion they organized a barbeque at the back of the ship, the passengers and the crew were dancing to Russian pop music with the sun still up in the sky (some crew members, the Captain, the chief mate, some Zodiac drivers and staff were Russian and Ukrainian).
The next day we were still enjoying the nice weather, while the tundra changed its colors from orange to bright-green.
The reindeer started to appear, at first just in the distance.
The reindeer in Spitsbergen are a special sub-class – they are small, have short legs and have a sedentary lifestyle without long-distance migration, unlike their other northern brothers. This lifestyle had lead to an interesting thing – the female reindeer have antlers for protection of their piece of land from the male reindeer, though their antlers are smaller.
Entrance to Isfjord, our final destination on the cruise.
And here are some pictures of the Spitsbergen skies – foggy, layered, pastel or dramatic – but always extraordinary and gorgeous.
