The inhabited Pole
We are going through the northern ice on a nuclear-powered ship to the pole. White-faced dolphins and porpoises can already be found at the exit of the Kola Bay.… And when, in the center of the Barents Sea, the icebreaker passes areas where fishing vessels are fishing nearby, then you can count on luck at all. The cetacean fauna of the region includes, according to literary information, up to one and a half dozen species; of course, not all of them will appear to observers.
A sea hare and a bowhead whale surfacing in a polynya. Photo: Ivan Mizin
The theory was perfectly confirmed by practice: at about 77°20 north latitude, two fin whales passed by the icebreaker at a distance of about one mile, then a dozen humpback whales, and about five minutes later one Minke whale swam by. There was no purpose in taking photos of whales, so everyone who was on the third mate’s watch at that time was able to admire the fountains, tails and backs of whales through binoculars. Such a sight can hardly ever get boring!
However, the most intriguing encounters with whales are ahead. After the icebreaker passes the Franz Josef Land archipelago, the ice fields begin, which will already “make up the landscape” all the way to the pole. Annual ice about one and a half meters thick, with streaks and cracks, polynyas, melted snowfields on the surface – that’s what surrounds the observer.
One hundred, one hundred and fifty years ago, when the first Arctic adventurers were rushing to reach the North Pole, the ice was more powerful, but even now not every ice field can be crossed immediately without backing up and falling on an ice floe. And so, among these vast spaces for the eye, seals periodically lie on the edge of the ice – these are sea hares (lakhtaks) and Ukrainians. The Khokhlaks’ habitation in the pack ice zone shows us that life does not freeze even in the northernmost latitudes.
But about the meetings with the bowhead whale, it turned out to be very interesting. One fine foggy day, seals were seen in the distance to starboard, clearly sea hares near the polynya. Pressing the shutter and seeing the world only through the small viewfinder window of the camera, I vaguely noticed to myself that next to this seal something was moving so big and blurry. And what a surprise it was when later, looking through the pictures, a bowhead whale surfaced right in this narrow strip of water!
That’s why this lakhtak was probably surprised when a whale about fifteen meters long silently appeared nearby. It happened a little north of eighty-two degrees north latitude, among the solid ice. That’s how sometimes you can unexpectedly get scientific data without even counting on it. Together with biologist Anna Astafurova, we looked at this picture more than once, which opened the veil over another mystery in the distribution of marine mammals in the Arctic Ocean.
But the story of this whale didn’t end there! Basically, well, a bowhead whale swam far into the ice, yes, it’s interesting. And, probably, swam back, where there is no danger of “getting stuck” far from the water. What a surprise it was when, on the way back, at the same latitude, again among the cracks in the cohesive ice, a bowhead whale swam out! Perhaps this is the same one we saw earlier, or maybe there is a summer feeding place for a whole group of these rare baleen whales.
And what about the seals? What did the observation of the distribution of pinnipeds show? These animals were encountered throughout the voyage in the ice. But young Crested birds, still immature animals aged from four months to a year, were also visible among the hummocks. And if in 2019 the northernmost sighting of this type of seal occurred at 87°43 north latitude, then in 2023 the Ukrainian swam as far as almost eighty-ninth degree! Almost to the Pole.
And there, a seal popped up in a crack once to look at the noise and fun of tourists, it’s a pity that it was not possible to examine it and determine its species. So it becomes clear why polar bears also penetrate into the very middle of the icy desert: it turns out that it is not deserted at all. And the cracks, which are easy for seals to navigate, reach as far as the 90° point.
How does a polar bear live?
A bear and an almost two-year-old baby bear. Photo: Ivan Mizin
Now, a few words about the polar bears that tourists are waiting for. During the seven days of their stay in their possessions, they managed to meet eleven bears in nine meetings. Two of these were females with large cubs, and the rest were mature males. We haven’t seen anyone thin, they’re all pretty well-fed. This is understandable: since there are a lot of seals around, the bear will not stay hungry. Twice we met animals that had just finished their “lunch”, having completely finished with their prey.
Therefore, the behavior was indifferently curious, only one pair, for some reason, sensing the presence of the icebreaker, chose to quickly disappear among the pile of ice floes in advance. And some, on the contrary, tried to get a quadrocopter with their paw, which flew up to them. The rules for using drones to film wild animals in the Arctic are rarely followed; in this case, the distances were observed satisfactorily by the pilot operator.
The beginning of observations of polar bears is the recording of their tracks. They provide information about the distribution of these predators in the ice, as they persist for quite a long time. If you then put these places on a map, you can get information about the population density of bears in a particular area of the Arctic, even without seeing the animals themselves. Sometimes it happened that no polar bears were seen during the entire flight, but the tracks were fixed!
But this is rare, because of the foggy weather and the season when the ice becomes more sparse and very thin or, conversely, hummocky, difficult to pass. Usually, you can still see and describe the meeting. Last year brought such an observation – a bear with three fingerlings, which is extremely unusual for this region of the Arctic. Moreover, in the spring on the island of Alexandra’s Land, it was determined by the tracks that one female left the den in the direction of the ocean with three cubs.
What if it was the same family? In any case, the tourist flight showed that the large bear ancestral group spent at least the first six months of its life in full force. Although one of the cubs was clearly already weaker. Alas, the three cubs are unlikely to survive.… Therefore, the two current cases of sightings of females with already large cubs are a sign that these bears managed to preserve some of their offspring in previous years.
All polar bears were found on drifting ice, either in the ice fields north of Franz Josef Land or on the remains of a solder in the straits of this archipelago. During this period, there is still no need to climb the slopes near bird markets, trying to grab a bird or destroy a nest.
Speaking of avifauna. Near the remains of seals, after the polar bears leave, it is very common to see birds: burgomasters and white gulls. The latter, as listed in the Red Book, are also subject to accounting. This rare bird has flown past an icebreaker several times, and once, classically, it was photographed while at a bear’s meal. It happened on the ice in the Nightingale Strait in the southwest of Franz Josef Land, where white gulls are known to nest.
By Ivan Mizin
