Mon
15 Aug
2016

Now we have to move one, we still have many miles to go to the west coast, up to Isfjord, and to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. We are pas­sing Mohn­buk­ta. The over­land trip from the­re to Lon­gye­ar­by­en would just take a few hours, but that’s ano­ther sea­son, ano­ther way of get­ting around … Agardhbuk­ta fol­lows, from here it would be a hike of 4-5 days for strong wal­kers. That is about the amount of time that we still have for the long trip around the south cape.

My per­so­nal memo­ries of the fol­lo­wing two days are not quite com­ple­te, as we keep steam­ing through two nights. Initi­al­ly, Hein­rich, Kers­tin and I take shifts, which we then redu­ce to Hein­rich and me during the second night so Kers­tin can take care of landings, which I am miss­ing. A stran­ge expe­ri­ence for me, but this way we can keep moving, which is important now. How did we make this work until last year, wit­hout a second gui­de? I don’t know.

But we do make landings. In Isbuk­ta, we make an unu­su­al obser­va­ti­on: a Harp seal on a pie­ce of gla­cier ice! Very clo­se to us, the cha­rac­te­ristic fur pat­tern is cle­ar­ly visi­ble. Then the group makes a hike on shore.

Gal­lery – Storfjord – 15th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We pass the infa­mous south cape during the night. Calm seas and reasonable wea­ther allow Hein­rich to exe­cu­te a nau­ti­cal mas­ter­pie­ce as he is navi­ga­ting Arc­ti­ca through through a nar­row and shal­low pas­sa­ge north of the small islands, saving a good 20 nau­ti­cal miles on our way to Horn­sund. Good thing, as it starts rol­ling as we reach the west coast.

Sun
14 Aug
2016

The Nor­we­gi­an wea­ther fore­cast is curr­ent­ly not worth the paper it is writ­ten on (and we don’t even print it). We should have been able to sail and make landings com­for­ta­b­ly in calm con­di­ti­ons. In real life, we have had quite strong winds last night and today mor­ning, enjoy­ing some real sai­ling. But even in a lee side posi­ti­on, it was too win­dy to make a landing today mor­ning.

So we con­tin­ued sou­thwards out of Hin­lo­pen Strait in order to make use of the pre­cious time, even though it was a bum­py road on the way to Heley­sund. So gre­at the­re is this well-shel­te­red bay the­re, what would we do wit­hout it? Even the­re, we spent the after­noon on board, wai­ting for the wind to sett­le down, but we did that in all com­fort and safe­ty. In the evening, it cal­med down and we enjoy­ed a nice hike around Straums­land, the arc­tic show­ing hers­elf in peace and beau­ty again.

Gal­lery – Straums­land – 14th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We are steam­ing sou­thwards in Storfjord through the night. The remai­ning days are get­ting fewer and we have to make sure we are get­ting back to the west coast now. Skip­per and gui­des are taking shifts, pas­sen­gers act as co-pilots during the night hours. See whe­re we end up tomor­row. Curr­ent­ly we have Mohn­buk­ta in the most beau­tiful mid­night sun light on our star­board side.

Sat
13 Aug
2016

Mira­cles of Hin­lo­pen Strait! Today was a day of wild­life. Brünich’s guil­l­emots in ama­zing num­bers – you know the place, we have been the­re befo­re, more than once. But Alkef­jel­let is and remains exci­ting. It is dif­fe­rent every time. This time, a lot of the chicks were alre­a­dy on the water, rea­dy to start the long trip to south Green­land tog­e­ther with their fathers.

It is pro­ba­b­ly less well known whe­re you can find puf­fins in Hin­lo­pen Strait 🙂

We saw four polar bears today. A mother with a cup up on a hill slo­pe, quite distant. We got a bit clo­ser to this well-fed guy who was spen­ding the after­noon on a very green slo­pe. The veggie food see­med to to him well. Of cour­se we don’t know what else he may have had recent­ly.

Gal­lery – Hin­lo­pen Strait II – 13th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We do know, howe­ver, that peo­p­le are sup­po­sed to keep some distance from wal­rus­ses. But nice that the wal­rus­ses don’t always know that 🙂

Fri
12 Aug
2016

After the „ner­ve-wre­cking pas­sa­ge“ (accor­ding to the pilot book, Den Nor­ske Los) of Fran­k­lin­sund, which is lar­ge­ly shal­low and most­ly unchar­ted, and some win­dy miles down into Hin­lo­pen Strait, we made Murch­ison­fjord our first stop in this area. It is, of cour­se, at the same time still part of Nord­aus­t­land. One good reason for going the­re was mee­ting the smal­ler sis­ter ship Arc­ti­ca I, which had brought some sought-after goods from Lon­gye­ar­by­en inclu­ding fresh fruit and yoghurt.

The polar desert around Murch­ison­fjord is made up of very old rocks, which gives tho­se with some back­ground in geo­lo­gy insight in some of the very ear­ly chap­ters of the histo­ry of life on earth. Colo­nies of algae that around 800 mil­li­on years ago con­tri­bu­ted to the con­tent of free oxy­gen of today’s atmo­sphe­re, which we use for breathing and bur­ning fuels and cand­les. The­re is a group of geo­lo­gists on Arc­ti­ca I doing rese­arch on this, and they kind­ly gave us a short, but very inte­res­t­ing intro­duc­tion into their work.

Gal­lery – Hin­lo­pen Strait I – 12th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We got fur­ther insight into geo­lo­gy, a snow cave crea­ted by a melt­wa­ter river and a beau­tiful litt­le can­yon as we ven­tu­red out on land.

Wed
10 Aug
2016

10th-12th August 2016 – Exci­ting days on the north coast of Nord­aus­t­land. To the south, the­re are the lar­ge ice caps, and to the north, the Arc­tic Oce­an. Bet­ween them, a nar­row stri­pe of bar­ren, ice-free land. It has ple­nty of rocks and lichens. Any­thing else is rare or absent.

And yet, the­re is so much. Impres­si­ons that are hard to squeeze into words. Land­scapes that have a lot of NOT­HING. I don’t mean the absence of any­thing that could catch the eye or mind. Quite the oppo­si­te: the­re is a lot of some­thing that might be descri­bed as NOT­HING. May­be emp­ty­ness is ano­ther term that makes the point. Any attempt to descri­be this would soon get bog­ged down in a long list of stones and rocks, shore­li­nes and gla­ciers, bays and fjords. Every flower, no mat­ter how small, beco­mes an attrac­tion, any chan­ge of rock cat­ches our atten­ti­on. It pro­ba­b­ly doesn’t sound very exci­ting unless you have expe­ri­en­ced the gre­at NOT­HING yours­elf. Many could pro­ba­b­ly stand in this land­scape and wouldn’t expe­ri­ence the gre­at NOT­HING, but just see – not­hing.

Gal­lery – Nord­aus­t­land – 10th-12th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We hap­pen­ed to visit the Hau­de­gen sta­ti­on, the last out­post of Ger­man sol­diers during the second world war. A mili­ta­ry wea­ther sta­ti­on that was not reli­e­ved befo­re Sep­tem­ber 1945, when a ship came from Nor­way. Ano­ther place we visi­ted was inner Bren­ne­vins­fjord, whe­re the Glen expe­di­ti­on from Oxford had a base for their rese­arch on the ice cap Ves­t­fon­na in 1935-36. The edge of the ice cap is just a few minu­tes wal­king away from the shore and it is easi­ly acces­si­ble.

Now we are on our way into Hin­lo­pen Strait.

Tue
9 Aug
2016

The end of the world! Yeah! Remo­te, litt­le islands are always some­thing spe­cial. The­re is always some­thing to dis­co­ver, and you never know what will hap­pen. The­re are often polar bears on small islands in this area. And, of cour­se, the wea­ther. You need some luck to make things work here.

They could never quite agree if Karl XII Island is one island or two. It was descri­bed as two islands after its dis­co­very in the 19th cen­tu­ry. Later in the 20th cen­tu­ry, both islets grew tog­e­ther, it is said. Now it is defi­ni­te­ly two islands. We could have gone through bet­ween them by Zodiac. If you can­not get from one end to the other with rub­ber boots wit­hout get­ting you feet wet, even at low tide, it can­not be just one island. Peri­od.

After having a good look around for polar bears and deci­ding that the only bear around, which way lying up on a slo­pe seve­ral hundred met­res away from our pro­s­pec­ted landing site, was not too much of a bother, we went ashore. Under the­se con­di­ti­ons, you can’t walk far from the boat, but the­re was not much space on level ground any­way, and the one and only hill was obvious­ly alre­a­dy occu­p­ied. The num­ber of kit­ty­wa­kes bree­ding up the­re is remar­kab­le, the­re is a con­stant noi­se and the slo­pes under the colo­ny are very lush and green. Tog­e­ther with the dark, rug­ged rocks and the over­all shape of the islands, which is long and nar­row, with the only real ele­va­ti­on at the nor­t­hern end and some lower hill at the sou­thern, it makes a nice minia­tu­re ver­si­on of Jan May­en.

A dead polar bear and some spread bones are silent but clear wit­nesses of how hard a bear’s life can be. But the strong one up on the hill is obvious­ly doing well, howe­ver exact­ly he is doing it.

Karl XII Øya and espe­ci­al­ly Foynøya beca­me famous in 1928 when Nobile’s air­ship Ita­lia cra­s­hed in their vici­ni­ty. The famous „red tent“ that housed the 9 sur­vi­vors of the crash – 6 men dis­ap­peared tog­e­ther with the air­ship – drifted for a while on the ice in this area. Among­st many reli­ef expe­di­ti­ons was a dog sledge par­ty with the Dutch­man Josef van Don­gen and the Ita­li­an Gen­na­ro Sora, who nal­ly beca­me stuck on Foynøya on 04 July; they were res­cued on 13 July by a Swe­dish sea­pla­ne. (With this last sen­tence, I copy mys­elf from my Spits­ber­gen book, I was too lazy to wri­te a new sen­tence.)

That brings us to Foynøya, which we explo­red in the after­noon. The nor­t­hern end, to be pre­cise. Some arte­facts from 1928 are said to be still the­re, a box and a pis­tol or wha­te­ver. I guess you would need weeks to dis­co­ver it, tur­ning every stone around, if any­thing was actual­ly real­ly still the­re.

Gal­lery Karl XII Øya, Foynøya – 09th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

And the­re are a lot of stones. Foynøya has got its very own charme. It is obvious­ly a high arc­tic island, with lots of gra­ni­te rocks, wea­the­red and bro­ken into lar­ge bould­ers. Black guil­l­emots are sit­ting and screa­ming on high cliffs. Some fog banks add to the atmo­sphe­re, wit­hout obscu­ring too much of the sce­n­ery.

Sun
7 Aug
2016

7th/8th August 2016 – The day did not just start grey and wet, it also remain­ed grey and wet. We adjus­ted our day in Raud­fjord, which today was a Gråfjord, by making it shorter, just making a litt­le moun­tain hike to have a view of a cloud from the insi­de and to stretch our legs a litt­le bit. Then we pushed on to the nor­the­ast, the best thing one can do with such a day is enjoy­ing a rela­xed after­noon on board while making miles. We rea­ched Sjuøya­ne after mid­night and drop­ped anchor for some calm hours.

Also Sjuøya­ne were any­thing but fog-free today, but visi­bi­li­ty was enough for a landing, to visit some wal­rus­ses and to make a walk in this high-arc­tic land­scape. We finis­hed the tour a bit ear­lier, as it tur­ned out that the ter­rain was occup­pied by a polar bear.

Ves­le Tav­leøya asnd Ros­søya are Europe’s nor­t­hern­most islands, rocks in this sea of fog that does not real­ly want to be an ice sea any­mo­re. But the islands are home to puf­fins. We saw also some of last year’s juve­ni­les.

Gal­lery Nor­t­hern Spits­ber­gen – 7th/8th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We made good use of a bree­ze by con­ti­nuing under sail towards the 81st par­al­lel, sai­ling bey­ond the edge of most maps on board. Kind of lea­ving the world behind, for while.

Sat
6 Aug
2016

The day star­ted a bit fog­gy, which is not neces­s­a­ri­ly a bad thing. You can give it a gent­le start, slow­ly kreep out of the slee­ping bag and have a peaceful break­fast wit­hout miss­ing any­thing.

But then the day real­ly took off. The sun star­ted to burn holes into the fog, alt­hough the remai­ning fog banks were lar­ge­ly very deco­ra­ti­ve. The har­bour seals on Dan­s­køya tur­ned out to be relia­ble, and so did the 17th cen­tu­ry gra­ves and blub­ber ovens on Ams­ter­damøya. Well, they tend to be less mobi­le than the seals any­way.

Gal­lery Nor­thwest Spits­ber­gen – 6th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

The litt­le auks in their colo­nies here in nor­thwes­tern Spits­ber­gen are semi-mobi­le, with their sea­so­nal migra­ti­ons, but still more mobi­le than a blub­ber oven that has been sta­tio­na­ry for about 400 years. Now in August, most of them were gone (the litt­le auks, not the blub­ber ovens). But even if the­re hadn’t been a sin­gle one at all: the two blue foxes would have been more than worth making that landing alo­ne!

Fri
5 Aug
2016

Around mid-day we had rea­ched Mag­da­le­nefjord. Going into Mag­da­le­nefjord was not even part of the plan, but as we don’t real­ly have a plan, it didn’t real­ly mat­ter … we keep making decis­i­ons as we go along the way, and as it was quite fog­gy fur­ther north, but clear in Mag­da­le­nefjord, this decis­i­on was an easy one.

During a first litt­le walk on a nice sand beach (no, not Grav­ne­set), we saw arc­tic turn chicks, may­be flap­ping their wings today for the first time, doing their first met­res in flight … the first of many mil­li­on more to come, they will spend most of their life migra­ting back and forth bet­ween the Arc­tic and the Ant­ar­c­tic. So litt­le ani­mals, such an ama­zing life. Some wal­rus­ses were swim­ming around, with a gla­cier front pro­vi­ding a good back­ground.

Not far away, a polar bear was res­t­ing on the shore. We had a good, reason­ab­ly clo­se look at it. It just lifted its head, not giving a sh… about our pre­sence. Or any­bo­dy else’s pre­sence. The­re was about half a dozen of boats drif­ting or ancho­ring in that bay, crow­ding the place. Not that it bothe­red the bear much. But the place was over­c­row­ded, well, it has been very crow­ded for more than a 100 years the­re, it is not­hing new. But not­hing we would want to be part of, so we left soon and hea­ded on.

Gal­lery Mag­da­le­nefjord – 5th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We left Mag­da­le­nefjord in good style: hiking. Hundreds of thou­sands of tou­rists have been the­re over the deca­des, but few have done that, lea­ving not on a ship, but on foot. We made a nice gla­cier pas­sa­ge to the north. On the way to the gla­cier, we pas­sed a polar bear just a few hundred met­res from us. We could only see it when we had alre­a­dy pas­sed it. It was lying fur­ther up on the slo­pe, wat­ching us for a moment, then lay­ing its head down again, not taking any fur­ther noti­ce of us at all. Good. We went our way up on the gla­cier, up into the fog, the moun­ta­ins occa­sio­nal­ly coming out bet­ween fog banks … a mys­tery atmo­sphe­re, small melt­wa­ter streams run­ning down the gla­cier, dis­ap­pearing into the ice in lar­ge holes. The com­bi­na­ti­on of a gla­cier, a polar bear and fog made this tour quite unfor­gettable.

Thu
4 Aug
2016

After a quiet mor­ning on board with gre­at views of the han­ging gla­ciers on Prins Karls For­land and a bit of geo­lo­gi­cal info­tain­ment (what a stu­pid word! It was a pre­sen­ta­ti­on, or a lec­tu­re, if you pre­fer that. Peri­od.) we rea­ched Kongsfjor­den. Both Kongsfjord­bu­tik­ken and air­ship mast have a remar­kab­le dra­wing power also for advan­ced Spits­ber­gen tra­vel­lers. And we want to re-fill die­sel any­way, to be able to reach the remo­test parts of the Sval­bard archi­pe­la­go should the oppor­tu­ni­ty ari­se. We will see what the wea­ther tells us to do.

The gre­at wea­ther with light exact­ly from the right direc­tion made an excur­si­on to the gla­ciers almost man­da­to­ry. Arc­ti­ca II under sail near Kong­s­ve­gen, some of Spitsbergen’s most impres­si­ve moun­ta­ins in the back­ground, all in suns­hi­ne, and then a big cal­ving just behind the boat. An ama­zing sce­ne, a spec­ta­cle, almost too much for the sen­ses.

The wea­ther is still fine, but sup­po­sed to turn to the worse tomor­row. So we igno­re time and tired­ness but head of for some good hiking on Blom­strand­hal­vøya. Well-known ter­rain, you should think. But even here, the­re is always some­thing new to dis­co­ver. One group takes off for some moun­tain hiking, enjoy­ing fine views of the sur­roun­ding gla­ciers and moun­ta­ins from an ele­va­ted posi­ti­on. The others do some caving. Not wit­hout suc­cess.

Gal­lery Kongsfjord – 04th August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

It is late as ever­y­bo­dy comes back on board. Break­fast is delay­ed next mor­ning and not real­ly syn­chro­ni­zed. We are alre­a­dy back to the west coast, hea­ding north, as we get up one by one.

Wed
3 Aug
2016

So we are off again, this time with Arc­ti­ca II. Six­ty feet of steel, 12 souls insi­de, inclu­ding skip­per and boat owner Hein­rich from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, Kers­tin Lan­gen­ber­ger as gui­de and me. Yes, this year we have got two gui­des on board.

Piz­za from the pub in Lon­gye­ar­by­en is the first high­light on board, and then we sail out of the har­bour. The­re is still a mode­ra­te bree­ze blo­wing in Isfjor­den, so we can get used to life at sea a bit. Not too much, but enough for some. Not too long though, it is get­ting cal­mer again as we approach the nor­t­hern side of Isfjord and it is calm as a lake as we are get­ting into the shel­te­red bay of Trygg­ham­na.

The hig­hest moun­tain tops are in clouds as we wake up next mor­ning, but it is nice, clear and dry, so we start for a litt­le moun­tain hike. Knu­v­len is a temp­ting litt­le top, just 325 met­res high but with gre­at views of sur­roun­ding gla­ciers, moun­ta­ins and the fjord. The view is worth every sin­gle one of the many rocky met­res.

Gal­lery Trygg­ham­na – 03. August 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

It is get­ting grey as we con­ti­nue into For­lands­und. We enjoy views of the coast as we pass Daud­manns­od­den near­by, but then it is a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to rest a bit, to read, to sort pic­tures … until we drop anchor in a litt­le bay at Prins Karls For­land for a calm night. We took the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a litt­le evening walk, dis­co­ve­ring the tun­dra with the colours of some late flowers and the remains of a hunter’s cabin, once solid­ly built with drift­wood logs, a mate­ri­al other­wi­se rare­ly used for that pur­po­se.

Thu
28 Jul
2016

28th/29th July 2016 – The thin lay­er of fog that had cast such magi­cal light effects over Horn­sund yes­ter­day had grown over night into a solid, low lying cloud cover, making the world appear much more grey than it had been yes­ter­day. But both the litt­le impres­si­ons of the colourful tun­dra as the views from ele­va­tions are as beau­tiful as we had been hoping for.

We go sepa­ra­te ways at least for a while in the after­noon. While one group is visi­ting a bird cliff, making fri­ends with litt­le auks, polar foxes and reinde­er with huge ant­lers, ano­ther group is crossing Nathorst Land from north to south. Yel­low and red frag­ments of clay­stone are lying on the black and soft ground, while we are working our way up the hill, enjoy­ing wide views over Van Mijenfjor­den with Akseløya, Fri­dt­jov­breen and Reind­a­len. Small, but deep­ly incis­ed tri­bu­t­a­ry val­leys requi­re extra effort and sweat, until we have rea­ched the hig­hest part. Down a steep slo­pe, and soon the tents are stan­ding on a bit of tun­dra, exact­ly whe­re each and every rain­drop has to make his decis­i­on: north to Van Mijenfjord or south to Van Keu­len­fjord. We enjoy a nice evening in beau­tiful sur­roun­dings and with good atmo­sphe­re while the coo­kers are hum­ming.

We awa­ke to the sound of rain­drops on the can­vas. The rain is not strong, but enough to make the world around as grey and wet. We fol­low a litt­le val­ley, fre­quent­ly chan­ging from one side of the litt­le stream to the other, while it is get­ting big­ger with every tri­bu­t­a­ry wea­ther.

Gal­lery Bell­sund – 28th-29th July 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

A litt­le gla­cier on the side has a huge sur­pri­se for us. A litt­le hole of a small melt­wa­ter river turns out to be a huge cave insi­de. Ice is glit­te­ring far abo­ve us and to our sides, a won­derful world. We go 20 met­res, 30 met­res, the end is in dark­ness. An impres­si­ve place.

Out­side, it remains wet and grey. We find some waters­falls along our way and final­ly we are hap­py as Antigua’s masts appear from the fog.

Wed
27 Jul
2016

The famous fema­le trap­per Wan­ny Wold­stad wro­te about Horn­sund that it is too beau­tiful to descri­be, you have to expe­ri­ence it yours­elf. This is cer­tain­ly true on a day like this.There are no words for this, I lea­ve it up to the pic­tures.
 

Gal­lery Horn­sund – 27th July 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Tue
26 Jul
2016

The wide-open Storfjord, often a very unp­lea­sant stretch of water, is lying like a mir­ror around us. After a late break­fast – the polar bear show kept us busy for a good part of the night – we rea­ched Spitsbergen’s east coast and drop­ped the anchor. When you have the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to step ashore on this expo­sed coast­li­ne, you just have to use it! The rocky coast­li­ne is a land­scape very much on its own, it looks as if someone had built a wall, but it is all natu­re. Some of the huge blocks show tracks of dino­saurs that were roa­ming here when this was still a wide, wet del­ta area in the lower Creta­ce­ous. Other rocks have been tur­ned to mush­rooms and colum­ns by ero­si­on.

Gal­lery Storfjord – 26th July 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We con­ti­nue over flat­calm sea, the water appears oily, ful­mars are mir­rored, wha­le blows are going up, long backs are brea­king through the sur­face. Spitsbergen’s east coast is stret­ching all over the wes­tern hori­zon, moun­ta­ins and gla­ciers, gla­ciers and moun­ta­ins. The clouds are back­ing out, and the sun is cal­ming warm evening light over the who­le sce­n­ery. What a night!

Mon
25 Jul
2016

Com­pared to the bar­ren polar desert of Nord­aus­t­land, the lush-green tun­dra around Heley­sund is a dif­fe­rent world. The rock colum­ns of basalt remind of wild west coun­try. Inland, flower car­pets with saxif­ra­ges and Sval­bard pop­py are stret­ching bet­ween the rocky hills, while strong tidal curr­ents are rus­hing though the chan­nels. We hike around Straums­land and then we crui­se through Orm­ho­let; at slack tide, it is just calm enough.

Some hours later, we reach Free­man­sund. A polar fox is ste­al­ing eggs and chicks from nests in a bird colo­ny. The coun­try around it turns out to be a polar bear hot spot: more than 14 bears are lying or wal­king around on slo­pes, most of them on one sin­gle moun­tain side. A true polar bear para­de!

Gal­lery Heley­sund & Free­man­sund – 25th July 2016

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

The­se Free­man­sund-polar bears are a phe­no­me­non and a mys­te­ri­um. Samples of their drop­pings may help to ans­wer the ques­ti­on what makes this area so unu­sual­ly attrac­ti­ve for them. My cla­im for fame in polar sci­ence.