My first Bear, Little Auks and a walk on Smeerenburg

Arctic Tern fishing

This extract is taken from my diary and was written while drinking hot coffee in the bar, glowing with excitement while sailing through the High Arctic.

‘It's sometimes hard to believe where I am, sitting here in the bar, warming myself up after a day spent photographing the beautiful and wild Arctic. A few minutes ago, I was sitting on my ass, face red, having just fallen down in the Zodiac, as the swells buffeted us against our ship, the Akademik Ioffe. We had just been photographing Little Auks at a large nesting colony on the cliffs in the bay. They are real little characters: fat, with beautiful curved eyes, set in a dark brown head, with white eyelids. Real characters. The climb to them was up some steep cliffs, and over many a large boulder. In fact it is quite a surprise that we all escaped unharmed, except for Elliott, our photographic guide, who hurt his wrist. I had been photographing perched on a boulder, foot wedged between two for stability, and only open ocean below me. I do get vertigo, but here I seemed fine, completely distracted by the plethora of life around me.

Little Auk Flutter

Giving me 'the eye'

The Little Auks have very small wings- in fact they are just big enough to fly. The reason that they weren’t graced with easy flight is that they were instead graced with an amazing swimming ability. They dive to great depths in search of fish, and they do so with a delicate ease and great agility. When they come in to land on the cliffs where they breed, the same cannot be said. A landing is more like a bounce, but they are hardy birds, and they don’t seem to take it too badly. One may wonder why they breed in such precarious positions? The reason is that if it’s hard to get to, there is less chance of a fox or Polar Bear raiding the nest. It also means that us humans have to put in a lot more effort to take a good photo!

A bear on the beach...

This morning, day two of our trip, we saw Nanuk- our first Polar Bear. We had just landed to go for a walk, and the first group had walked for about 5 minutes and was watching a seal when they realized a bear was in turn watching them. We heard the call over the radio, having just piled off our zodiac, and immediately began looking for him while the leaders fussed around, getting us to put our recently discarded lifejackets back on.  We were then shepherded onto the boats, for the bear’s safety and ours, as there is no use in our foolishness causing the death of a beautiful bear. I was on the boat in a second, after snapping off two very quick and very poor quality shots. My first Polar Bear ever!!!

Watching a boat full of tasty humans

Smelling us?

We then took to the sea, and watched him pacing it toward the spot where we had been not 15 minutes prior. He was beautiful, a cream- coloured coat with black eyes and black pads on his ever so huge paws. We spent over an hour with him! During that time I filled a memory card, and we got stuck on a small sandbank and had to get out and push ourselves off it. Not all of use, obviously, but enough that it raised the intent interest of the bear. The people on the other boats said that while we were stuck the bear kept his eyes on us, wondering if he was about to get an easy meal! It was incredible- what a special animal to see, what a special memory. It was also our first clear day, and the fjord was beautiful: snow capped mountains, a glacier and our bear.

Glacier on the opposite side of the bay

‘Our bear’ then swam across the small fjord and climbed the opposite bank, chased a couple of reindeer, before wandering off over the cliffs, leaving us smiling and me shaking with excitement…’

During summer, bears lose up to a kilogram of body weight a day.

Bears will even eat seaweed during the long summer months

Shake- off!

Atlantic Puffin- one of my favourite birds!

This bear was fat and healthy having obviously fed recently.

 The area where we had stopped that day is called Smeerenburg and it is home to an old whaling station. The bay used to be full of whales, and its difficult to imagine what it may have looked like, all those whales before the whalers stuffed them in the blubber ovens. It is said that looking out over the water, one would have seen hundreds of the beautiful creatures, frolicking and feeding. When I looked out I saw none- a sad testament to what humans can do to the planet.

I can honestly say that that day is likely the most excited I have felt in my whole life. We had seen a bear- the whole reason for this trip- and the one animal I had never dared dream I would see for many a year. Thinking back on it now, I still smile, and get a shiver of excitement. I can so clearly remember him, and how I felt watching the apex predator of the Arctic, and the largest predator on land as he took a stroll through Smeerenberg.

Bear tracks and zodiac after we re- landed at Smeerenburg

Walking tour of the old whaling station

With my dad in the beautiful Arctic- the trip of a lifetime!

Remains of an old blubber oven on Smeerenberg, AmsterdamOya

Lifting anchor after a very special day on the Akademik Ioffe

Hide and Go seek : Finland and the bears

Anyone who has flown into Helsinki will know it’s not a particularly large city. It’s also surrounded by forest on all sides, forest as far as the eye can see (…except when the eye is looking at a lake. ) There are 188 000 lakes in Finland, which is a lot of lake. Although even this is not quite as impressive as knowing that 66% of the country is covered by beautiful green forests: forests full of spruce and pine trees, birds, butterflies, moose, reindeer and bears (among others). This is my kind of country, green and natural, where wildlife is allowed to survive relatively undisturbed in natural tracts of land, without fences. I wouldn’t have expected any of you to know these two wonderful facts, as until I climbed into the second (much smaller) propeller plane in Helsinki for my flight to Kajaani, I didn’t either. 

When the din of the propellers finally died down, and I felt safe enough to gaze out the window, all I could see below the odd cloud cover was forest, lake, forest, and lake. It was magical, so much green. Our drive from the airport took just under two, hours, and when I wasn’t sleeping from exhaustion brought on by far insufficient sleep in the Arctic, I just stared out the window while our driver, and the owner of the lodge, Ari, told us about the bears. That was of course the sole reason for our trip to Finland, the chance to watch the European Brown Bears as they go about their business from the safety of a photographic hide.

The lodge itself was set deep in the Taiga forest and was homely and family run. It is on the shore of a small lake, surrounded by trees, and about 2 kilometers from the Russian border. That first evening we basically collapsed into bed straight after dinner, dead to the world. The following day, we decided to take a walk to the border. I don’t think we got there, and I’m not entirely sure we headed in the correct direction, but we did enjoy spending some time in the forest, listening to the birds, watching butterflies and searching for berries.

Me with my anti-mosquito blanket...

That afternoon, we met our host at 4pm for dinner and an introduction to the hides. The hides are situated on the edge of a small lake, in a marsh, surrounded by (obviously) forest. The bears are very shy animals, as they are still hunted in Finland and Russia, although the border area is almost a ‘safe haven’ for them. In Finland at least, permits are very expensive, and not many fins can afford one. Then we started the march to the hide. I say ‘march’, as our guide was on a serious mission. Its just under a kilometer, and we must have covered that distance in max 10 minutes. We were fortunate to have amazing weather, but this also means it was hot. 28 degrees hot most days. Marching as we were up and down little forest paths when the air is muggy and you’re carrying a good 20 kg’s of camera equipment certainly didn’t help us keep cool! One problem with having the Arctic trip right before was that I had basically packed 2 t-shirts. In future, I would take a few more, especially in July during the Finnish summer!

The hides are about 1.7 metres wide, and 1.5 metres long. That included space for bunk beds, and there is  no toilet to speak of, just a bucket with a seat and lid (- a good reason not to need the loo!) The first night we were so hot, it took forever to cool down, mostly because we hadn’t been prepared. By the third night we had wet towels with us, and it was pleasant. You can choose your hides each night, depending on the view you want, and then you cannot leave between 5.30pm and 7am the following morning, for obvious reasons.

Some of the bird life around the lake

We had barely been in the hide for half an hour when our first bear arrived. There are scraps of Salmon hidden under logs for the bears, from the nearby salmon farm. This encourages them to visit the site as part of their nightly foraging. I was over the moon excited to see him, in his shaggy brown coat on the opposite side of the lake. Some gulls scared him off though, and I was worried that would be it for the evening. How wrong was I! 

A younger bear with a beautiful coat

This bear is a well known 24 year old Male

We had around 15 visits that first night, by what I imagine was 5 or 6 individuals. One came to within around 3 meters of the hide, so close we could almost feel his breath! Of course, I had just stuck my head out of one of the 4 lens holes when this happened. and was obliviously day dreaming away when a sharp pat on the back brought me back to reality, and to quite a surprise with the bear staring at me chewing some salmon. They are really beautiful creatures, with very flat faces and huge rear ends. When they run, their whole body shakes from side to side, and they look very comical. Their eyes are a rich brown colour, and the younger ones have incredibly sleek coats of a rich hue. It was quite something to have them so close.

The bear 3 metres from my protruding head

About 3 metres from the hide

The gulls can make the bears nervous

That evening I slept about 2 hours, from 12-2pm. It is light enough to see the whole night through, although in the midnight hours it’s a strange blue light, and there was quite often mist rising off the lake. When I woke, and my dad went to sleep, he had barely laid down when a Wolverine appeared from the forest and ran around the lake. A while later, he ran back again, and a different individual appeared an hour or so later. We were also fortunate enough to see a lone wolf, as he moved between the trees. Wolves are very endangered in Europe, and this was really special for us. He was a large silver male, almost ghostly in the mist.

The following morning after breakfast and a shower I passed out for a good 5 hours. One thing you learn quickly in the Arctic is to sleep whenever there is time, and to sleep well in the daylight. I out this to good use in Finland, and slept like a baby all day long until we woke to visit the hides again in the afternoon.

It was really quite an experience staying in the hides. They were small, hot and uncomfortable, but the sightings were like magic. To be able to watch wild brown bears in their environment, completely undisturbed was really special, and I will definitely be doing another few trips to see them. I believe April has far fewer numbers, but there is a good chance of seeing them in the snow. September is supposed to be great for the autumnal colours and the cold misty mornings. At the very least I would like to experience these two seasons with the bears, and maybe see a mother with cubs, or a bear climbing a tree. Either way, bears have certainly stolen part of my heart, and I dream about seeing them again soon. 

I should however warn that the mosquitos are giant, and tenacious. If you spray the anti- mosquito cream on them, they still don’t get deterred. I have proof in the form of 20 odd giant bites on my shoulders and elbows. Still, that’s hardly too high a price to pay for the opportunity to see a bear in the wild!!!

Brown bear at Sunset, Hide 1