Four polar bears, one wal­rus – 11th August 2015

Tue
11 Aug
2015

New trip, new luck. Old polar fri­ends with their fri­ends and rela­ti­ves, a very fami­li­ar set­ting right from the begin­ning. Very plea­sant.

A litt­le bit of swell in the Isfjord ent­rance. Christ­mas-tree Wil­li finds out that the sea is some­thing dif­fe­rent than a forest. The shaking of a boat is less plea­sant than the shaking of the trees.

Mir­ror images on the water in For­lands­und. Moun­ta­ins and gla­ciers seem to rise both upwards into the sky and down­wards on the water.

Pho­to Kongsfjord – 11th August 2015 – 1/2

Ny Åle­sund is a good start, a gent­le tran­si­ti­on from zivi­li­sa­ti­on to the arc­tic wil­der­ness. And mee­ting Mar­ten Loo­nen, the head of the Dutch arc­tic sta­ti­on, is always a very plea­sant affair, whe­re you will always learn a lot. Geese and foxes chan­ge in having good and bad years, rough­ly simi­lar­ly to lem­mings. The cycles don’t have three years, but seven or eight. The grass, the reinde­er, rain or snow, it is all part of the sys­tem. It is com­plex.

Pho­to Kongsfjord – 11th August 2015 – 2/2

A dead wal­rus on the shore as attrac­ted two polar bear fami­lies. Two mothers, each with one cub of the year. One fami­ly is stay­ing a bit away while the other one is fee­ding. The mother is pay­ing full atten­ti­on to the wal­rus car­cass, while the cub is busy with a pie­ce of drift­wood. The small boat with the visi­tors off the beach is, howe­ver, com­ple­te­ly irrele­vant to them. A reach meal, a feast for bears and tou­rists. A wild bit of arc­tic natu­re. A gre­at expe­ri­ence. Unless you are the wal­rus.

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