Polars!

Our first full day on the ship (we were warned that the captain does not like it if we call it a boat), we heard the announcement that a polar bear had been spotted off the starboard bow.
We were in Bellsundet Bay, looking at the Island of Akseloya (Editor’s Note: Umm, nobody cares.  They’ve never heard of these places.  Blogger: Well, the curious readers will Google the places to see them on a map.)

Just before the trip, on the recommendation of the famed Tucker Martin, I read “Never Look A Polar Bear In The Eye” by Zac Unger.  It’s a fabulous book, very readable, about a guy who moved his family for a number of months to Churchill, Canada.  That town is the polar bear tourism capital of the world.

With a keen eye and sharp wit, he wrote about polar bears, polar bear tourism, and polar bear science. . .including the feuds and different perspectives.  Very well written, and anyone reading this blog would do well to read it.  Anyhow, I mention it because his four year old son is fascinated by the chance to see, in the four year old’s word, “polars.”  He did not call them polar bears, just polars.  The excellent writing around his son’s first sighting of polars is worth waiting for in the book.  I like “polars” so much, I will use that in this blog.

Anyhow, we saw two separate polars that first morning – both off in the distance on land.  We had been warned to stay very quiet, even careful to close the doors to the outside slowly so as to not let them bang.  I will say this for people with the resources to pay for an expedition cruise to the Arctic. . .we listen well.  The only noise you heard was the whirring of the cameras trained on the bear and the occasional plaintive whisper of “I don’t see it, where is it” or “I had it but now I lost it.”  Sometimes I was joining in that whispering.  

The first one took a while to spot.  And, once you did spot it, you couldn’t take your eyes off it.  Even though it was a long way to shore, and, for the longest time it just lay there in the snow like it was resting (Editor’s Note: That’s because, Glen, it was resting!).

Once it started moving, we were all fascinated.  (Editor’s Note: Now you are just projecting your feelings onto everyone else.  You can’t speak for everyone, you don’t know if everyone was fascinated.  Blogger: If you weren’t excited to see your first two bears, why even come to the Arctic?).  We all watched it for a while, thrilled.

The second bear was a bit later, as we had come to an area where they were thinking about a landing and a hike.  Needless to say, we were not going to land in an area where a bear had been spotted.  Apparently our handlers aren’t supposed to deliver tourists right to the bear like some sort of food delivery app.  It’s considered bad form to have a polar attack and kill a paying guest.  

I kid – polars are ruthless killing machines who could well attack, so the vigilance of our expedition leader (Lucho, from Ecuador) and his team is both necessary and appreciated.  The ship’s crew is incredible at spotting these bears.  I never would be able to be to find one unless the bear is already close, or if someone else did not tell me where to look.  It is neat the way each bear’s location gets whispered around from person to person.  

In my mind, as we’ve gone through, I classify each bear sighting into one of three categories – distant bears, naked eye bears, and quality bears.

“Distant bears” are ones you have no chance of seeing unless you have binoculars or the vision of pre-frozen, still alive Ted Williams.  “Naked eye bears” are those you can see without binocs, and “quality bears” – a term I first heard from Holly – are bears that are on ice and close to the ship.

The second bear was high on a mountain ridge on the Island of Akseloya, and was moving from our right to left.  There were also reindeer up there, and they made sure to stay ahead of him.  I’m not sure the polar was stalking the reindeer, but while polars prefer the blubber of seals, they are also now believed to opportunity eaters (my short-handed phrase).

After the polar disappeared, and the excitement wore off, I was a bit worried that this was as close as we would get – there would be no quality bears, or even naked eye bears.  What if this was as good as the expedition gets?  What if the best we do with the bears is squinting through a camera lens?  That would be pretty disappointing.  As foreshadowing will have it, I should not have worried about that.