The North Pole

steveuptonphotography

These images are taken in the sea ice of the North Pole from a small ice cutter. This was difficult and risky. You depart from Svalbard, Norway and there are strong possibilities the sea ice has moved too far North and captains won’t make the dangerous voyage. You will be left searching the Svalbard Archipelago for land bound polar bear. In July, when I was there, we were about 25 hours in open sea before reaching the sea ice of the North Pole. We were the only humans, no other captain would make the crossing at that time. By the way, our return trip to the islands was in 25 foot seas on a 40 meter boat. There is a reason for caution amongst the captains.

A safer and less expensive bet would to go to Churchill, Manitoba on the Hudson bay. I have very successfully photographed polar bears massing together as they waited for the Hudson Bay to freeze over. I stayed out on the tundra in a living pod supported with an accompanying tundra buggy. This put us in immediate proximity to Polar Bears so we did not have long travel distances in what is a very short day. Check out Nurtural Habitat for their photo expedition version of this trip. They do a good job.