Our First Quality Bear

We were heading to Cape Hinlopen when the crew spotted a polar bear on ice floes in Storfjorden, which, as you know, is a body of water separating Spitsbergen from Barentsoya and Edgeoya.

As you can tell from the title of this, it was our first quality bear!  He came very close to the boat, picking his way across the pack ice, going from floe to floe.  At times he would stop and sniff the air, no doubt picking up the bacon smell emanating from the ship’s cabin – someone quipped that we were chumming the air with the smell of bacon!

Other times he would stop, lay down and just hang out.  At one point he yawned.  Another time he stuck his tongue out.  From one floe, he stuck his head in the water, possibly looking for food.  As his head raised up out of the water, it streamed dramatically off his mouth.

The whole ship was dead silent, and in love.  Okay, so we were enthralled by one of nature’s killing machine, but everyone was rapt as the bear kept us entertained for an hour or more.  It was electric.  If it was less than an hour, I’d be stunned, because it seemed like the bear was there near the ship forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever.  

He finally headed along toward the aft of the ship – “aft” means the back of the boat, for you landlubbers.  (Editor’s Note: Wow. Look who’s all Mr. Fancy Pants Ship Expert now!), so many of us followed.  Eventually he wandered out of sight. 

It was a thrill.  Later I high-fived Holly, because the pressure for a quality bear was off her, and all of us!  It turns out we had more quality bear sightings to follow.  We were now up to three bears, one quality and two distant.  Doug later told me that what I call distant bears the expedition staff call “pixel bears” because they take up one pixel in a photo.  (I’m sticking with distant because that’s how I started, but I do appreciate pixel bear as a term of art.)

Later, I was struck by a thought.  (Editor’s Note: Well, that happens so rarely it must have hurt!  Blogger: Hey, I’m trying to be somewhat deep here.)  Of all the people in human history, the number that have seen a live polar bear in the wild (not a zoo) must be an incredibly small percentage, and we are lucky enough to have seen three already.   

Any doubts I had about the value of this journey were washed away by a quality bear.  I hope that bear lives a long life with plenty of ice and plenty of seals.  It’s an amazing world.