We saw a lot of polar bears, eight or nine. Sometimes we couldn’t land and take a hike because a bear was on shore. Most of the time, a sentry on the bridge of the ship or on a distant knoll spotted the bear in a distant reach. When I saw them, they were invariably on the move, scavenging for food. They wandered back and forth searching, turning things over, stopping to sniff the air and digging.
In Harbor Bay, we saw a bear in its typical habitat: floating on a moving piece of brash ice. In Port Leopold, we watched a bear travel the entire distance of the peninsula, stop at a cairn and then swim toward the ship. Bears cannot see very well, but they can smell. I think it smelled the galley with cooking food. Someone guessed the bear thought we were a funny-looking iceberg.
