Not just a footprint

As the ship drifted through the fog, somewhere in Greenland waters, a massive iceberg approached. Perched on top, like a gift being delivered in the middle of the ocean, was a mother polar bear and her cub sleeping soundly. 

“We were about 10 or 15 miles away from a shoreline,” says Katie Harber from AE Expeditions, “and they were just snoozing on this bit of ice.” Harber thinks the pair was only two or three hundred metres away. “You could see them with the naked eye without binoculars,” she says. 

People travel to the Arctic worldwide, hoping to glimpse these iconic predators. Although they are the largest species of bear and the biggest land carnivore in the world, their scientific name, Ursus maritimus, means ‘sea bear’ because they spend most of their life in the water.