The North Pole: A Trip To The Top

It’s far from smooth sailing, but the epic journey to the north pole is richly rewarding. Those who make it join a select group of travellers who can say they’ve experienced 90 degrees north.

- Dale Templar

Two bundles of fur roll around together on the sea ice, playfully tugging at each other’s necks. Standing on the bow of the ship, I’m near enough to hear the small grunts and growls coming from these spirited siblings.

Close behind, their mother watches her twin yearlings with what seems like a frustrated expression, as if she wants them to stop playing and concentrate. It’s the mother polar bear’s job to find food for her family in some of the most inhospitable places on Earth — in this case, the Russian Arctic.

“We’ve got an hour’s journey before we reach the nuclear power plant,” Vadim, our local guide, informs us when we meet him at the airport. Not the usual opening gambit you expect to hear as your summer holiday gets underway — but this is about as far as you can get from a ‘standard’ summer holiday.

It’s July, and we’re in Murmansk, Northwest Russia. On the flight from Helsinki earlier, we’d crossed over the Arctic Circle at 66.3 degrees North. From the window, I gazed down onto a vast wilderness, peppered with pine trees and innumerable ice-blue lakes. Between late April and October each year, the snow melts and frees this land from its icy grip.