Western Ellesmere Island

September 6

We awoke to a calm sea with no ice. Overnight we had traveled east, through the Norwegian Sea on the way to Eureka Sound on the west side of Ellesmere Island. This is an extremely remote area— neither the naturalists nor the indigenous guests on the ship have ever been here. 

As we entered Eureka Sound, we encountered the last stretch of continuous ice from the spring. While the ship could have broken through, we chose not to as this is such important habitat for both bears and seals. All around the ship we could see bear tracks, circling around seal breathing holes. We watched a bear “still-hunting”, although we were about a mile away, hovering at the edge of that ice sheet. “Still-hunting” is a method where the bear sits motionless next to a seal breathing hole, waiting for a seal to appear. This waiting can go on for well over and hour (particularly because the seals maintain several breathing holes to give themselves a fighting chance). After about 30 minutes we left the bear to it, and the ship backed out. We went along the south edge of the ice sheet to enter the Sound in a spot where the water was clearer. 

We made our way to a small bay on the eastern side of the Sound. We had to crunch through some floating ice. We saw a bearded seal out on the pack ice when we first entered, but it quickly vanished (we were pretty noisy with our ice breaking), probably down a breathing hole. As we neared the potential landing spot in Travers Cove, the ship carved a path through new sea ice that probably formed within the last 24 hours. This new ice is thin and dark, like the first skin on a puddle in winter time. There was also a fresh dusting of snow on the mountain sides. To clear a launching area for the zodiacs, the ship rotated in place, which was amusing to experience. A scouting crew of naturalists went ashore first, trying to find a path through the thin ice to the shore, then checking the landing and walking conditions as well as looking for “yellow balls of death” in the vicinity. We set out on a “medium hike that allows time for photography and looking at stuff”. It was -2 Celsius with a 20 knot wind, but who’s counting.

The landscape looked brown and barren, but up close there were many different kinds of lichen and low growing plants, some still in bloom. Finding blooming poppies on a shelter hillside was a real surprise. We also saw evidence of lemming tunnels, arctic fox scat, arctic wolf footprints, musk ox scat, caribou bones and antlers. We saw or heard several bird species, and found snowy owl pellets (with lemming fur and bones included).

Pictured: polar bear still-hunting, polar bear tracks near a seal breathing hole, map location for where we were today (78 North), arctic poppy, blooming saxifrage, landscape from the hike, arctic wolf print