Spitsbergen: Kingdom of the Ice Bear

 

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Spitsbergen in the high Arctic, an apparently monochrome, barren world which is full of hidden life and colour. For eight days we sailed around the coast of the island in a ship with a strengthened hull, going as far as the ice permitted. Weather and ice conditions changed almost by the hour. We experienced both 70 knot winds and rolling seas, and flat calm, blue skies and sunshine. We saw snow, rain, cloud, fog and sun, sometimes all in the same day and altered our plans accordingly. We discovered that pack ice moves surprisingly quickly, our experienced captain saving us from being trapped in ice blown down from the north east.

The mammals, birds and exquisitely small plants that survive there are specially adapted to survive freezing temperatures and six months of darkness. For us, however, this was the land of the midnight sun – a place I have wanted to visit as long as I can remember. The trip of a lifetime.

We travelled with Naturetrek, an excellent, environmentally aware organisation that specialises in crafting wildlife holidays. It was our fourth trip with them and, as usual, they didn’t disappoint. Special thanks to Paul, Rob and Richard for their kindness and endless good humour in the face of (occasional!) adversity.

Walruses

Digital art

Having spent a fortnight choosing and packing art materials to take to Spitsbergen my case was lost in transit. The only thing I had to sketch on was my iPad. Painting digitally was completely new to me – this was done using an app called Procreate – and I made lots of rookie mistakes. I’ve now learnt more about it (and I’ve read the instructions!).

 

Barnacle Geese

Acrylic, 28 x 40cm

Every year we drive north to Caerlavarock in Dumfriesshire to see the overwintering Barnacle Geese. Around 33,000 individuals make the epic journey from Svalbard to Scotland and we hoped to see a few of these sociable birds in their breeding grounds in the Arctic. We were in luck – we saw geese on the nest, lots of goslings, and large groups of adult birds. Here’s a painting of two of them.

Polar Bear

Digital Art using Procreate on an iPadPro.

This was the first polar bear we saw in Svalbard – what a privilege! We first saw him in the midnight sun at some distance, resting, but the following morning he was up and about. The weather had changed dramatically, and he made his way along the coast, sometimes walking across the boulders, sometimes swimming. He swam amazingly quickly, given the fast flow of the water and the wind. And yes, the water really was that colour. Even on grey days, it was an improbable greenish-blue.

We were lucky enough to have the Russian researcher Dr Nikita Ovsyanikov with us on the ship, a man who has perhaps spent more time living with polar bears than anyone else on the planet. He has written extensively about both polar bears and arctic foxes and the threats facing them in this age of climate change and continued hunting. Polar bear pelts make substantial amounts of money for the hunter and we were told that 1000 polar bears are still being killed each year, a fact which I found shocking.

 

Photo of Nikita (right) from Prabook.

On a lighter note, here’s a lovely video clip of another bear we saw, with thanks to Rob Mileto.