We were disappointed not to see polar bears during the couple of days we explored Svalbard. Our next stop was Greenland, and I didn’t expect to see much fauna there. Wildlife is heavily hunted, so animals run away from the sound of engines.

But a sharp-eyed guide spotted motion amidst the sea ice as we approached the northeast coast of Greenland, and it turned out to be a lone polar bear. For about fifteen minutes his curiosity won out over his fear. He swam from one ice floe to another close to the bow of the Polar Pioneer, peering and sniffing and cocking his ears at us as we trained our lenses on him.

In the afternoon we had a more fleeting encounter with a polar bear family. The mother was obviously frightened by our appearance and kept her two cubs moving quickly away from us, so we did not try to prolong the visit.

These were our only encounters with polar bears during our 13 days afloat.