We will be travelling on a small ship throughout the Svalbard archipelago, the most northerly populated land mass in the world.  Svalbard lies in the high arctic, halfway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole itself.  The harsh and remote environment is home to many types of wildlife, including reindeer, polar bears, arctic foxes, walruses, five seal species and twelve different types of whales.  The 2,700 people who live there, comprised of over 50 different nationalities, are outnumbered by the  estimated polar bear population of 3,000.  Birds migrate and nest there in the summer by the tens of thousands, including guillemots,  puffins, ptarmigans, common eiders,  and colonies of little auks containing over one million birds.

​

Because the habitat is so fragile regulations limit the size and number of ships that can visit the area.  We will be on a small boat, holding a total of  50 people, to minimize our impact on the environment and visit areas that larger ships are unable to navigate.  Although arctic conditions are unpredictable, our trip has been timed so that we should be able to see the amazing transition as the long artic winter is beginning to melt away, and the landscape is opening up to all of the wildlife that is reemerging to take full advantage of the brief but intense summer.