Feature

I have to confess that I’m not concentrating as much as I should be when Mikael, my guide, shows me how to use the snowmobile. Sure, I’m somewhat anxious about climbing on board a vehicle that has the capability of powering me around, and presumably off the edge of a cliff, at an excess of 80 mph, but my mind is more focused on the prospect of an encounter with a polar bear.

The spectre of the polar bear hangs all over the Svalbard archipelago, in the Arctic Ocean to the north of Norway. They first thing you see on arrival at the airport in the tiny town of Longyearbyen is a stuffed bear standing sentinel over the baggage reclaim belt, and on the airport bus to town you’ll pass that much-photographed road sign, warning of bears on the road.

The polar bear is supposedly protected in Svalbard and apparently you can only shoot one in self-defence, and then prepare yourself for an inquest longer than the Kennedy Commission. If the enquiry concludes that you didn't take adequate precautions to avoid a conflict, or worse, shot the bear in the back as it was running away then you will be in serious trouble. Walking around Longyearbyen I see so many skins and stuffed bears that I have to conclude that either lots of people are breaking the rules, or there must be an awful lot of attacks.

Mikeal carries a rifle with him, and a series of firecrackers and flares. These are supposed to be used to frighten off any bear that we might encounter, hopefully without the need to shoot at it. Because of the ever present danger of the bears, I need to be with an armed guide at all times when outside of Longyearbyen.

The first thing that needs to be done before embarking on a snowmobile safari is to get kitted out. Even though I’m heading off in the middle of May, when the 24 hour sunlight has had plenty of time to raise the temperature from a hideous amount below freezing to a balmy -5°C, the wind chill, and effect of riding a speeding snowmobile reduces this considerably. There is always the chance of getting caught in a storm, in which case we’ll need all the protection we can get.

I’m given a full thermal suit with gloves and matching boots, more thermal under-layers, a balaclava and a helmet. I feel, and probably look like someone wearing one of those fake sumo suits.

Riding a snowmobile is a lot like quad-biking, only instead of having four wheels you have two at the front and a caterpillar track at the back. Bizarrely, it turns out that you don't even need snow to ride a snowmobile - you can clatter slowly across small areas of tarmac and bare ground, and even across areas of melted groundwater if you go fast enough. Both of these pieces of information were somewhat reassuring, as the great Arctic melt was well under way.

The Svalbard archipelago lies just inside the Arctic Circle. In the winter months it experiences the polar night, where temperatures plunge to as low as -50°C and the sun never shines.  In February, the sun first appears over the horizon, and by April there are 24 hours of daylight. This rapidly heats up the ground and melts the snow leaving slushy puddles around the town.

Eventually we’re off, and heading across the broad Adventdalen valley leading from the outskirts of town into the interior of Spitsbergen: the largest island in the Svalbard Archipelago. Our destination is the Nooderlicht, a Dutch sailing ship, which is frozen in the ice from every February and acts as an icebound hotel in the middle of a fjord.

We make fast progress towards the ship at Templefjorden. The scenery is stunning: we pass along the Adventalen until we reach the wider and more spectacular Sassendalen (or Sassen Valley). On either side there are mountains, including the spectacular Helvetiafjellet (Helvetia Mountain).

Mikeal stops to point out Operafjellet, where a Russian plane crashed on the approach to Longyearbyen in 1996, killing 141 people – most of them miners and their families from the nearby Russian mining settlements of Pyramiden and Barentsburg. We also stop at a less chilling memorial to the exploration and exploitation of Svalbard: two iron beds left in the snow by trappers who were carrying them on a dog sled at the turn of the century. Apparently they just got tired of the effort. Left them intending to come back later, but never did. As they date to before 1946, they now count as a national monument, and so are protected against being moved.

Snowmobiles are perfect for this type of terrain. They make rapid progress, and luckily for me as a photographer, I can stop whenever I want. A snowmobile is noisy when you’re travelling, but when you stop you can appreciate the silence. This contrasts with a dog-sled team, which is virtually silent in transit, but is difficult to keep still if you want to take a picture. When you do stop the silence is broken by being surrounded by a bunch of excitable, yapping hounds!

After a couple of hours of hard riding we arrive at the edge of Templefjorden and see the flat frozen ice filling the fjord. In the far distance I can see the ship and although it’s still completely light, it’s getting late, so we have to get there as soon as possible for dinner.

The Nooderlicht is literally frozen in the ice. A Dutch schooner dating from 1912, it has been modernised and is a warm and welcoming haven in such a cold and harsh environment. When we arrive it’s somewhat busy. There are a few dogsled teams – only about seven people, but almost fifty dogs are sleeping out on the ice.

Inside, I drop my bags in a small but comfortable cabin and am soon sitting in the dining area with a cold beer. There’s a small and friendly Dutch crew on the boat, including a chef. I’m just in time for dinner, which is of a surprisingly high quality bearing in mind the remoteness of the location.

After dinner the crew spread out a number of postcards and envelopes on the table, and started to frank them with a series of custom stamps. They’ve registered the ship as a post-office and have rubber stamps made for the world’s only polar dog mail. Any letters are carried back to Longyearbyen by a dog team, before joining the regular mail. They’ve not had any dog-sleds visiting for a while, and have built up a large backlog. Because of the melt, there would be no more visitors to the ship this season, and in a couple of days a Norwegian Navy ice-breaker will be coming into the fjord to clear a path for the Nooderlicht to make it back out to open water.

It turns out that the Norwegian Navy are quite happy to use this as a training exercise, and also encourage the presence of the ship as it acts as a permanent rescue station in this hostile environment. Apparently a number of people who have got into difficulties and wouldn't have survived the journey back to town have been saved by the presence of such a warm and safe haven.

The following morning it’s a slow start as we watch and photograph the dog teams’ somewhat frenetic and chaotic departure over the frozen surface of the fjord before making our way up to the Von Post glacier. This vast and ragged wall of ice soars up to thirty metres from the frozen surface of the fjord.

We skirt along the edge of the glacier looking for signs of wildlife, and every so often we can see a seal by a hole in the ice. Sometimes we’re able to approach quite close to them before they slide nervously into the water. The seals keep air holes in the ice open with their teeth and claws, and we have to look out for deserted holes as we ride across the fjord; hitting one at speed could be disastrous. The sky is very overcast, and a light dusting of snow is falling. It’s difficult to make out details amongst all of this white, and we have to slow down. Mikael has tales of people walking off the cliff in this weather, unable to discern the edge.

We decide to ride to the top of the Fjordnibba mountain which overlooks the fjord. On the way we come across a small herd of the squat and stocky Svalbard reindeer. They have shaggy coats of white fur, but are showing patches of their brown summer coats and the makings of short, stubby antlers, growing back for the breeding season.

It’s a tough drive to the summit of Fjordnibba with the whiteout conditions getting worse. From the summit we’re able to look out on both sides - down to the fjord, barely making out the Nooderlicht as a faint red in the white, and out to the mountains of the interior. It’s now late afternoon, and as the conditions worsen we decide to head back to the ship whilst we can still see it.

On my final day the weather clears and the sun shines brightly under an expansive blue sky so we venture to the top of the Fjordnibba again to see the view without the whiteout from the day before. The view from the summit is much clearer and I can see right out to the mouth of the fjord and the open sea where in a few days the Norwegian Navy ice-breaking ship will make its way in.

At the brow of the mountain, we notice some tracks in the snow. It seems that a mother polar bear and her adolescent cub passed this way around a day or so earlier. They would have walked down the steep slope on the flank of the mountain and passed close by the Fredheim trappers hut, where so many of their kind had met their end. From here they would have headed out to the mouth of the fjord, or maybe walked across the fjord and past the ship.

Strangely, I'm not disheartened by missing the bears, more enthused by the fact that they had been around in the first place. It puts me in mind of the words of an old safari guide in Kenya: that if you see a quarter of what sees you, you are doing very well. This really is the land of the polar bear, even if on this occasion, I wasn't able to see them.

Essential Information:

The Ship in the Ice is run by Basecamp Spitsbergen, who also have an atmospheric guesthouse in town, modelled on a trappers station. The ship is operational from February through to May, depending on the ice conditions. The early departures are much colder, but you have a greater chance of seeing polar bears.

Basecamp Spitsbergen's parent company, Basecamp Explorer, also have projects in Africa and India, and so you can avail yourself of their own carbon balancing program where for 250 Norwegian Kroner (a little over £25) they will plant trees on your behalf to mitigate the environmental impact of your trip.

If this doesn't convince you, then you can still reach the Ship in The Ice as part of a three or five day dog sled expedition. To see all of the options offered by Basecamp, and their projects in other parts of the world, visit their website.

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About the writer:

Steve Davey is a photographer and writer whose work has been published in magazines and newspapers all over the world. He is the author and principle photographer of Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die and Unforgettable Islands to Escape to Before You Die - both published by BBC Books. His new book is Footprint Travel Photography.