Wrangel Island: Polar Bears & Whales Galore!

It all started only 24 hours ago with a wake up call at 6am as the captain dropped anchor off Kolychin Island. We boarded our Zodiacs for a cruise along the island’s amazing bird cliffs. It was almost time to return to our ship when a call come across the radio: ‘Polar bear! Polar bear!’ And there it was, our first polar bear. Little did we know, but we were in for an extraordinary few hours of sightings.

As we lifted anchor to start our crossing towards Wrangel Island, our expedition leader, Nathan Russ, explained that we were going to cruise along the coastline to the north of Kolychin Island – in the past we had picked up good whales in this region. After breakfast, the fog lifted and we saw our first ice to starboard, along with a good number of walrus. We had amazing views of about 150-200 walrus hauled out on the ice.

As we approached the ice, a call came that we had our first polar bear on ice, behind the walrus. At the same time, Mark Carwardine called out: ‘Have you seen the bowhead whales on starboard side?’ We were spoilt for choice – but turned away from the polar bears to head towards the whales. For the next hour we didn't know where to look, as six humpbacks and eight bowhead whales fed around our vessel. As we sat with the engines idle, a bowhead whale came up right under the bow of our ship – something that Mark has never seen in more than 30 years of whale watching! The bowhead slowly passed the bow of the vessel, much to the delight of its audience. After an hour with the whales, we turned back to see the polar bears. They were still on the ice behind us, feeding on a kill about 60 metres from the bow of our vessel.

It was hard to tear ourselves away but, eventually, our captain made the difficult call to head north to Wrangel Island, in order to keep us on schedule. It wasn’t long before we came across more whales, however, including a group of about 25 feeding humpback whales – one of them jumping clear out of the water. As evening fell we reflected on what an incredible day we’d had … and wondered what the following morning would bring.

With the first ice found at 3.30am, the expedition team was on watch to find more polar bears, and at 5am the light and sea-ice was so amazing that a wake-up call went out across the vessel. It was a good call – at 5.45am we had our next polar bears in sight. From this point on, Wrangel Island did what it always does – deliver one polar bear sighting after another to our small group of eager onlookers. From 5,45am to 7.15am (when breakfast was called), we had seen 16 polar bears including several mothers and cubs, and had enjoyed some amazing interactions with them as well. The one that stands out for me, is the encounter with a mother polar bear and two cubs that came right up to the vessel and checked us out before rolling and playing in the ice just a short distance away.

Join Mark Carwardine and Chris Breen on our 2020 Wrangel Island wildlife voyage and experience the expectational wildlife of Wrangel Island. Contact our wildlife experts to book or find out more.