GO EXPLORE: ALAN WOODcan't believe his eyes as he spots 80 polar bears making their way up a long, steep headland on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia
IN THESE DAYS of go-anywhere adventure travel, it is possible to fly to the South Pole or crunch your way to the North Pole in an icebreaker. Our ambition, more polar bear than polar cap, took us 71 degrees north to a remote land that lies astride the 180 degree meridian in the Chukchi Sea off the northeast coast of Siberia.
Wrangel Island is one of the new destinations made possible by the rapid melt of the polar icecap. Just 10 years ago, our voyage to this island would not have been possible. In 2001, the mean summer, ice-free period was 92 days; by 2010 this had increased to 135 days; by the time we arrived there at the end of August, Wrangel was completely ice free.
Some scientists project that if the melt continues at the same rate as in the past 10 years, polar bears could be extinct in this region by the mid-21st century. Put another way, if you want to experience these creatures in their natural habitat, you should go sooner rather than later.
The closest destination to Ireland for a polar bear experience is Svalbard, the Norwegian group of islands, to which you can fly in a few hours via Oslo. There you can circumnavigate Spitsbergen, learn all about the Arctic explorers and see lots of wild things, including walrus, arctic fox and the bears.
We undertook this voyage a few years ago and were so delighted by it that we started to research other possibilities. We came upon Wrangel Island before the big melt and were astounded that, very few years later, a voyage to “the maternity home of polar bears” was possible.
So this summer we set off on the long flight east via Moscow to Anadyr, a surprisingly modern town rebuilt and painted in pastel shades thanks to Russian oligarch and former regional governor, Roman Abramovich, of Chelsea football club fame.
We stepped off the plane into the relief of fresh air, bright sunlight and a warm day. After a walk round "Abramoville", 50 passengers and staff transferred to the ship, the Spirit of Enderby, in Zodiac inflatable boats.
Our wildlife encounters started immediately: in the strong currents of the estuary we could see the bobbing heads of spotted seal, and the flashing white bodies of beluga whale, hunting fish. We sat down to our welcome dinner as the ship weighed anchor and sailed north across Anadyrsky Bay, with the Siberian coast quickly fading from sight.
For the next five days, as the Spirit of Enderbyprogressed towards Wrangel, we settled into a happy routine of morning and afternoon Zodiac rides, shore landings and tundra walks, only twice prohibited by rough seas and wind conditions.
The birders were delighted with our Zodiac runs past massive cliffs, home to thousands of guillemots, black-legged kittiwakes and cormorants, interspersed with horned and tufted puffins, crested and parakeet auklets to name but a few of the 59 bird species we were to tick off on the trip.
We stretched our legs on tundra that was already streaked with the colours of fall: a spongy carpet of yellows, reds and greens. Shrubbery here is measured in centimetres: we were walking on black crow and bear berries, blueberries, cranberries and white cloud berries; as well as the prolific tundra moss, lichens, tiny polar willow and dwarf birch.
Now and then we startled some small mammal, the odd ground squirrel, pica, tundra vole, lemming, mountain hare and arctic fox. From the ship and Zodiacs, we occasionally spotted seals and whales, grey, fin and humpback, as well as a few orcas.
PASSING THROUGH the Bering Strait, the 80km wide channel between east Russia and Alaska, we continued on to anchor at Uelen, a native Chukchi village once shared with Eskimo cousins.
The Chukchi are a tough people who resisted colonisation by the Russians for more than 50 years and whose antecedents were among those who crossed to populate the Americas, when the two continents were joined by an ice bridge.
We enjoyed seeing exquisite walrus tusk carvings, which illustrate their way of life, and examples of clothing made from skins and fur. We were entertained by a group performing traditional dances and were made very welcome.
We learned how they still hunt a subsistence quota of whales and walrus in small boats and how the inland Chukchi herd reindeer. As we waved to them on our way back to the ship, a grey whale broke the surface nearby and gave us a great fluke display.
We sailed through the night to anchor off Kolyuchin Island and awoke to the promising augurs of calm seas and patchy blue skies. The bridge announced dramatically that there were polar bears in sight on land off the port side.
We clambered quickly to the top deck and watched for the next hour as a bear entertained us by ambling along the brow of a distant hill, going into a derelict wooden building and reappearing to sit on the porch before strolling off into the distance.
Down below on the beach, there was a big haul-out of walrus. So it was with some excitement that we launched the boats and headed towards the bird cliffs. Rounding a promontory, there was a collective gasp as we sighted a big polar bear mother with two cubs, one in the water the others on the rocks, only 40m away.
Even though later we were to have three closer encounters, and see many distant bears, this was a memorable sighting, and we had not even arrived at Wrangel Island.
For another five days, we cruised round Wrangel Island, which is about 150km long and 80km wide. We made many landings accompanied by Russian wildlife rangers and the charmingly eccentric scientist, Vasily Baranyuk, who has been studying wildlife on Wrangel since 1983.
From Vasily we learned of the ancient wildlife, and were encouraged to pick up heavy mammoth tusks, many of which have been preserved and dug up out of the permafrost. We also learned about the large colony of snow geese, most of whom had departed south, and the yellow-eyed snowy owls which are here year round.
AT VARIOUS landings, Vasily set off determined to show us his domain and its ruler, the polar bear. Armed only with thick sticks, because no guns are allowed on Wrangel Nature Reserve, we got as close to them as we dared on land, about 150m. Really close meetings were made from the Zodiacs and we had three of those, one only 15m from the boat of a bear standing in the surf guarding a walrus carcass.
Finally, we had the incredible experience of witnessing from our ship some 78 polar bears, at various stages of climbing a mountainous promontory, as the Spirit of Enderbysailed by more than a kilometre off shore so as not to disturb them.
- Alan Wood travelled with nature specialist, Wildlifetrails.co.uk. Oceanwide-expeditions.com operates 10-day voyages around Spitsbergen from €3,500. Heritage-expeditions.com has a 15-day voyage to Wrangel Island from $9,900 (€7,320). Prices are per person, sharing a twin cabin, and exclude air fares.