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Arctic Journal

There’s something other-side-of-the-moon-like about visiting a place that’s in total darkness four months of the year. Svalbard, Norway’s island archipelago is just 600 miles from the North Pole, and in the summer months, life’s on fast forward for plants and animals. In July 2005 I embarked on a 10-day TravelWild excursion to Spitsbergen, the archipelago’s largest island. I have a new perspective on what it means to be a global citizen after cruising by zodiac to within feet of sunbathing walrus, watching a mama polar bear and her two cubs swim without rippling the water—stealthy as water snakes, and peering into the perfect yellow cup of an Arctic poppy. Following are excerpts from my journal and a few of my favorite photos.

July 5

As we approached Longyearben by plane, the mountains below were like a great herd of bony-backed zebras, snowmelt creating stripes of dark earth on either side of their spines. Their flanks had been sculpted by fierce winds that were obviously still blowing. These mountain zebras reminded me that I was soon to land in the Serengeti of the far north, where Arctic animals roam freely in mostly undisturbed white wilderness.

After boarding the ship, we made ourselves comfortable in our cabins before gathering for an orientation and dinner. Still adjusting to the time change, I stayed up until midnight and experienced the light of the midnight sun. Newly emerging greenery glowed in the low-slanting sunlight. I imagined I saw a polar bear in one vast field, likely a mirage borne of wishing to see one so much.

Today we went out in the zodiacs for the first time. We examined the plants spreading like a vast crazy quilt at our feet. One naturalist pointed to a tiny forest of willow trees no bigger than bean sprouts. On one he counted 13 growth rings—a teen-aged tiny tree, an Arctic bonsai project. He said the leaves change color and drop off in the fall in stunning reds. The plants and animals feel so precarious up here. It’s almost painful to walk on the melting tundra (in some places the permafrost is 1000 feet deep!) trying hard to avoid the fragile wildflowers. My favorite is the nodding bladder campion with puffy purple flowers like mini Chinese lanterns.

We spent the afternoon on a beach near the 14^th of July Glacier. I was expecting sheets of ice instead of sandy shores, like those of the Oregon Coast except for the ice bobbing along the water’s edge like driftwood. Looking like abandoned ice sculptures, they conjured fairytale images of mermaids, frogs, sailing ships, toadstools and maidenheads.

July 6

This morning I saw my first polar bear of the trip! He was ambling along the edge of an island, moving surprisingly quickly considering his bulk. It seemed more “travel poster” than reality as he moved along the tundra with a backdrop of craggy peaks—true denizen of the Spitsbergen (the name means pointy mountains). The weather is perfect. Sitting out on the deck sipping coffee in the sun I felt like I was on a Washington state ferry instead of so close to the top of the world.

Afternoon, July 6

We had an amazing view of a juvenile polar bear today from the zodiacs. It nuzzled into the seaweed at the island’s shore and lay down like a yellow-white sphinx, nearly right at our feet! She had a very dark face, probably from foraging in the seaweed.

Out in the zodiacs the waves splashed in the sun as we circled dancing icebergs—or bergy bits as the smaller ones are known. Even smaller chunks that reach no more than three feet above the water’s surface are called growlers, named for the animal-like noises of escaping trapped air as the iceberg melts. We also spotted another polar bear taking a nap, so peaceful looking you’d expect it to purr—a gigantic house cat.

The ship anchored off the massive expanse of the Monaco Glacier—2-1/2 miles across. The sky clouded up and it sprinkled a little as we left, the light playing up the surrounding sea and landscape. White icebergs glowed against a backdrop of sea foam green water, a Mars-red mountain of iron ore and dark purple sky. We were rewarded by two additional bears on the way out of the fjord! I will never forget the combination of colors and light punctuated by these wild creatures. I have to keep reminding myself that they’re not in a zoo enclosure because it is so surreal to see these nearly mythic animals galloping along right before my eyes.

July 7

We awakened in the shadows of monolithic islands which reminded me of the defining rocks of the Olympic coastline, only much taller. This place is called the Seven Islands, the northern most point of our voyage. The water was really calm and from the top deck we spotted spraying in the water. It turned out to be a small group of walruses swimming in the same direction we were travelling. As they came up for breath, they sprayed out water almost like whales spouting. It was so exciting to be in this remote gorge-like channel between islands viewing creatures so otherworldly that they could have been messengers from another planet. They swam so gracefully I almost didn’t believe they were walruses, but as we got closer we could see their tusks flashing in the sunlight. Animals I would never before have considered beautiful turned out to be some of the most graceful swimmers I’ve ever seen. The stories of sailors mistaking manatees for mermaids came to mind and I felt as if I’d encountered the mermaids of the far north.

Later we took the zodiacs out to view some walruses hauled out on ice. We slowly nudged closer to a group of four squeezed onto an iceberg shelf until we were only 15 feet away! Their wizened faces had a lot of character with squared off muzzles, leathery skin and short bristly whiskers (vibrissae) that enhance their sense of touch as they seek out bottom-dwelling shellfish. The shapes of the islands in the distance mimicked the walruses’ bodies making for some wonderful photos. It was so still that the animals were perfectly reflected in the water.

The ubiquitous black guillemot’s feathers blend seamlessly into the icescape, black against the dark water with a splash of ice-white on the wing.

In the afternoon we motored closer to the polar ice cap. The ice in the distance looks like the whitecaps of the Pacific on the Oregon Coast, and the water stretches out flat to meet them giving the impression of a low tide. The ice pieces between here and the horizon are like patches of sea foam. It is an eerily lovely landscape. Big hunks of ice were far apart at first, but as we got further north the pieces became thicker and thicker until we had to crash through them. I’ll never forget the feel of grinding ice slabs sliding under and over each other as the ship churned over them. As the pieces shot our and collided with others it reminded me of a slow-motion portrayal of continental drift in a filmstrip I’d seen in grade school. The ice is sculpted into funny shapes—a mushroom, a pig and piglets, and an inviting tropical lagoon, if you replaced the ice with sand.

July 8, 2005

Last night a polar bear walked right up to the ship! It was a bright and sunny evening and we were parked in thin pack ice. The ice had melted into a pattern that spread around us like a giant’s fishing net laid out across the sea—shallow pools between the unyielding “net.” We all hurried to the deck after the captain announced a polar bear in the distance. At first it looked like a glowing white snow ball moving towards us. As it got closer you could see its determined walk, which seemed to say—“I’ve got to check this out.” The bear walked straight towards the ship without hesitation. About 30 yards away, he lifted his nose and moved his head back and forth sniffing the air, then continued towards us. As he got closer I could hear the crunching of his massive paws against the slushy layer of snow on top of the ice. We were all quiet on deck—except for the click of camera shutters we were awed into complete silence. He sniffed around the ship for about five minutes, then abruptly headed away from us, without so much as a backward glance! We felt so lucky to be there. The solitary life of a polar bear was never more poignantly clear.

July 9

This morning was another spectacular day. We boated to Phipps Island of the Seven Islands group. A group of walruses on the beach gave us a sniff of what people mean when they say walruses stink—think week-old meat left out in the sun. We hiked across the island along a high-alpine like stream that looked like something out of an Irish legend. Dried algae that reminded me of peat made a channel for the water as it passed lichen-bitten rocks and mounds of mossy campion plants capped with tiny purple flowers.

July 10

Yesterday we took the zodiacs to a thick-billed murre colony—their nests impossibly shallow shelves stacked up hundreds of feet into the air. Some 50-60,000 birds all clamoring in voices like that of the Penguin from the original Batman TV series. In some places the cliffs were draped in glaciers, all melting into myriad waterfalls with the sea below alternating glacial green and tropical turquoise blue. The rock faces were splashed with orange lichen, patches of golf-course green grass and alternating layers of rock sediments—a geologic ice cream sandwich.

We motored down further into Hinlopen Strait in search of bears. It was mesmerizing to watch the ice break up along the way, like staring into a blazing fire. Pieces break off in many different directions and take on ever-changing shapes—plunging into and under others. The water is a deep teal blue in the sun and the white is beautifully stark against it—a color so rich that it explains how white can be composed of every hue in the universe.

This morning we woke up to cloudy skies. We decided to approach a bear that was spotted last night by the crew (a comical thing in my eyes because as we approach anything—bear, seal, bird—we are a huge, noisy thing by comparison.) I was on the top deck and it was fun to suddenly spot him in the distance, like I’d discovered him myself. It’s beautiful to watch how they walk, with toes pointed in, the graceful sweep of their head and neck and their Asiatic eyes. To me their faces are catlike and the shape of their nose and mouth seem to suggest an ancient knowing. The network of ice patches makes me think of a wetland swamp or a huge lace doily settled perfectly across the top of the world.

The sky had an unusual glow called ice blink, sometimes called an “ice sky” when the bright sheen of sunlight reflecting off the ice brightens the clouds. The clouds mimicked the ice and water below resulting in a uniform silver color that made it hard to distinguish ocean from sky. It was a palate of color you wouldn’t believe if an artist painted it that way. I tried to capture it in a photo and did get some nice reflections of the sun in the water pools. It reminds me of sea rocks at sunset with ocean waves washing over them—it’s that kind of light: sun reflecting off wet rocks. There is black in the white of it, and it just couldn’t exist without the deep black of the sea and the invisible black of night behind it. Like a canvas of white with a black primer coat, it’s not visible, but you feel it. And this is true too of the polar bear, his black skin only serving to amplify his light coat.

Up on deck a few lucky ones glimpsed the legendary ivory gull. It took on the silver glint of the landscape—like an Ansel Adams’ photograph, the world in shades of gray—bright silvery gray. Seals pop up here and there, buoyant as corks. Sleek heads up a moment, then back under, shy of the ship.

July 11

During the night we moved out of the ice and into a fjord where the Lord of the Rings could have been filmed. Stacks of glacial ice define its edges and spires of rock reach up into the clouds. It’s a place for big ideas and warm mittens. Out on deck I clear my head with the cool air and the unforgiving scenery. Murres paddle, dive and surface alongside the ship. When they try to take off into the air they look like a child’s toy duck that you push along the floor with its feet flapping.

Later we went ashore to a geologist’s and lichenologist’s dream island. Black, yellow, orange, and cauliflower-like lichen covered the rocks. I saw pixie cups and curling black cup lichen. Also more wildflowers to add to the list: mouse ears, chickweed, and poppies in full bloom. The rocks are red (compressed sands from warmer millennia) and it left a lovely crimson hue to the water in contrast with the green-blue of the deep fjord waters. The boat glowed white in the sun against this colorful background, with snow-covered mountains and glaciers behind. I could have sat and looked at rocks forever—one pebble held pointed crystals inside like a miniature cave and another looked like a scaled-down sandstone cliff.

We saw two ptarmigan fly by and I found one of their feathers with the extra-extension down—pure white and impossibly soft. We also found one of their eggs, empty but lovely with black spots, a perfect camouflage in this landscape. Lower down the hill, pieces of shale had broken into stack shapes, divided into what looked like mineral decks of cards. A hidden stream ran underneath the rocks making trickling water music. You really felt like you could be walking on another planet with the squishy moss and algae between the red rocks. Looking more closely it resembled a planned rock garden with little plants springing up through the crevices, the textures of moss and rock, lichen and time. We knelt down to smell the purple saxifrage and it had the light, fleeting scent of a salmonberry blossom. We tried the sorrel and it tasted like oxalis in the rainforests of home.

July 12

Yesterday afternoon we went to an island called Fugel Song, which means Bird Song, to visit a colony of nesting little auks or dovekies. It reminded me of what I imagine Easter Island to be like, with huge rounded boulders tattooed in lichens. Spongy moss filled in all the gaps, making the rocks look as if they were sprouting out of the earth. The auks nest under boulders and right now they are gathering to mate and brood. Groups of them would come screaming out from the cliffs with a woodpecker-like song (the murres sounded more like The Penguin from the original Batman shows), make a soaring curve out over the ocean then return to the rock fall. We climbed up over rain-slick rocks to get close to the colony, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible in our colorful, clicking gear.

We sat and waited for a half hour or so and slowly the little birds (“mini murres” as Rennie called them) returned to their rock perches. They kept a close watch on us, their nictitating membranes flashing like white eye shadow. The heads reminded me of a puffin’s minus the color. Their landing method was comical with those stubby black feet poked out in front, their wings held out behind them like insufficient parachutes. Through the binoculars I watched two of them calling to each other while pointing their tail feathers into the air like chickens. It looked like part of a courtship display.

Later that night we were getting settled after dinner when we had an announcement that a mama bear and two cubs had been sighted on shore. After Rennie and Dennis went out in the zodiac to make sure they would not be upset by our presence, we all got to go out in the rain in the zodiacs to see the little bear family! It was so wonderful to watch them so gracefully navigate terrain like what we had just been stumbling through earlier in the day. The two yearlings (estimated to be about 18-months-old) would try and step exactly in their mothers’ footsteps. It was incredible to watch them swim. They would go three in a line, the two cubs swimming nose-to-tail behind mama. They looked like white alligators, with only a slice of fur above the water. There was no movement in the water around them or any apparent effort from their shoulders or backs.

After they came back onto land, they shook like dogs, and then walked to a nearby snow field. We watched this mama bear snake out her neck like a cat scratching its neck on the floor to rub her head and neck in the snow. We’d seen a video on polar bears that explained how they use the snow like a towel to dry off. They babies repeated the motion, one after the other. We followed them for about an hour until they came near a glacier, ambled into the water and swam off into the middle of a bay. It was such an incredible experience to travel alongside them among lichen-covered boulders, against blue glacial walls. I gained a new appreciation the vastness of their landscape, and for their small greatness.

It was also a very memorable way to end our trip, as tomorrow we begin the journey home.