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Silversea Expeditions: Canadian Arctic Polar Bear

We spot a Canadian Arctic polar bear on our Silversea Expeditions cruise.

When travelers sign up for an Arctic cruise, besides the spectacular landscapes, people hope to see polar bears, walruses, seals, musk oxen, arctic foxes, narwhals, beluga whales, and more.

And perhaps nothing is more anticipated than the mighty Arctic polar bear.

It is Tuesday, July 23, 2024. It is the ninth day of our journey with Silversea Expeditions, and today, all of our dreams came true.

Monumental Island. Click for a larger view.

We arrived at Monumental Island around noon and were scheduled for an afternoon zodiac cruise at 1:00.

Monumental Island, located in the Davis Strait south of Baffin Island, is an uninhabited Arctic island in Nunavut, Canada. Named by explorer Charles Francis Hall in 1862 to honor Sir John Franklin, the island is a significant landmark for navigation.

It features a rugged, windswept landscape and is home to diverse wildlife, including walruses, polar bears, and nesting black guillemots. The island is also known for its stunning icebergs and glaciers, making it a notable destination for Arctic exploration and wildlife observation.

Yippee! A Polar Bear!

Not long after the expedition team went out scouting, we heard the cruise direction announce on the loudspeaker that they had spotted a polar bear.

As you might imagine, as we were scheduled to be among the first zodiacs out, we ran back to our room to don our expedition cruise wear.

Clothing flew as we tore off our casual clothes. We’re both hopping around on one leg, trying to quickly put on our Merano wool long johns, pull up our long socks, and put on our parkas.

We hurried down to the mud room, put on our muck boots and life preservers, and off we went.

We were all anxious as we hurried away from the Silver Endeavour. We could see the polar bear in the distance and didn’t want to miss him.

As we approached the polar bear, roughly eight zodiacs were in a carousel formation, circling so that we all might get a front-row seat.

As we waited our turn, my stomach churned because I desperately wanted to get a good closeup of this bear.

Well, as it turned out, I got over 50 photos of this big boy. He was napping before we got there, and when he spied all of these zodiacs, he came near the shore to see what was going on.

Because I used a zoom lens, the zodiac picture above appears much closer than in reality. I’m going to guess that we were 75 yards from the bear. Nonetheless, our zodiac guide mentioned that there were strict rules about how close and how long we could stay near the bear. After about 15 minutes, the bear lost interest and meandered off, but not until I got many photos. I couldn’t wait to return to the ship to inspect my photographic treasures.

While I have some fabulous photographs, I thought I would share our Silversea photographer’s (Eric Duran) photo from this exciting encounter.

I can’t begin to tell you how excited we were to have this up close and personal encounter with a polar bear. I have many other photographs of polar bears from our Arctic journeys, but nothing compares to this experience.

Thanks, Silversea Expeditions!

Stay tuned for more of our exciting adventures as we report experiences from our 14-day Arctic cruise with Silversea Expeditions.

For more information or to book an exciting Silversea Expedition cruise, please call Roaming Boomers Travel Services at (480) 550-1235 or use our convenient online information request (click here), and we’ll reach out to you.

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This article was written with the aid of Perplexity AI. Roaming Boomers Travel Services is an independent affiliate of Cadence and a Virtuoso® member. CST#201120-40