Pack Ice

It's a feeling one never forgets when you reach the pack ice for the first time. Suddenly the water is calm, you feel some extra cold coming from below, you try to adapt your eyes to the different shades of white and blue, try and scan the horizon, looking for wildlife. How many times did I think I'd spotted a polar bear, but it was just dirty ice? Countless times. Actually, all the time, except maybe once.

It doesn't matter how many times you make it to the pack ice, you will always come across a different atmosphere: it can be crispy and bright one day, then foggy to the point you can not see more than a few meters away. Every time you become more and more aware of how lucky you are to be witnessing this environment as it will unfortunately not last much longer.

Polar bears heavily rely on ice as their regime mainly consists of seals, who themselves rely on ice for giving birth to pups. As the ice is receding, bears are having to adapt and travel longer distances to find food. One of the bears featured on this page could be an example of that, he was very skinny and very curious as to what was on our boat. I never forget bears that I meet and will definitely never forget this one.