Today we continued our exploration of the Svalbard archipelago on the northern part of Spitsbergen Island; during breakfast the National Geographic Explorer arrived at Mosselbukta.
We all went ashore and divided into several hikes, starting at the site of a trapper’s cabin located a few feet from the shore. The most striking feature was the tall wooden structure, more than 20 ft. high used to cache meat away from polar bears. A really large male polar bear standing on his hind legs and stretching his long neck could sniff the back of a bull African elephant, so tall structures like the one we saw today are a must for trappers here. The cabin was in good condition and seemed to be used recently; trappers still spend the winters all over Svalbard looking for arctic foxes for the fur trade; in the past they also hunted polar bears, but the species was protected in 1973 by the Norwegian government.
Some hikers also visited the remains of the Swede mineralogist Adolf Erik Nordenskiӧld’s camp base, who wintered here during 1872-73 to be able to start early in the year in an attempt to reach the North Pole using sledges pulled by reindeer. Nordenskiӧld didn’t make it to the Pole because most of the 40 reindeer he brought to the island escaped during a heavy storm, but he and his team succeeded gathering scientific data in the neighboring island of Nordaustland anyway and became the first-ever scientific expedition wintering in the archipelago. Other hikers made an exciting discovery, the carcass of a white-beaked dolphin that showed signs of having been eaten by a polar bear. Polar bear predation on white-beaked dolphins was first documented only last year at two sites very close to our landing and today’s find may be further evidence of this previously unknown behavior.
During the afternoon we arrived to the protected bay of Jarlfjellet and explored it by Zodiac. We admired up close the rock formations and the evidences of past glaciations around the islets nearby while looking at the ever-interesting bird life. We watched numerous birds, including the great skua, a species that just colonized Svalbard during the mid-1970s, arctic terns, black-legged kittiwakes, red phalaropes, red-throated loons, long-tailed ducks, common eiders, and everyone’s favorites, the king eiders.
After dinner, we visited the small Moffen Island, a nature reserve where walruses like to haul-out; we watched some 30-40 walruses on the beach and some others swimming around the ship. With their impressive long tusks the walrus is an iconic creature of the Arctic and their presence at Moffen made for the perfect ending of another exciting day in Svalbard.
