Polar Bear Island

Journey to Russia’s Far East and step back in time to the Ice Age to uncover the last place where woolly mammoths roamed and where hidden wildlife gems still flourish

- JULIET RIX

They called it ‘Doubtful Land’ – a place long sought, even preemptively marked on maps, before it was finally discovered. And as we approached, it looked doubtful indeed. Our ship, the Kapitan Khlebnikov, crunched to a halt, sea-ice blanching the water, blocking our way to the desolately beautiful shore. The northernmost UNESCO World Heritage Site, Wrangel Island was once again playing hard to get.

Fortunately, we’d already made friends with the ice – and been richly rewarded. Out on deck early that morning, meandering through the floes, a pearly panorama glistening in the Arctic sun, we had seen more than a dozen polar bears before breakfast. Some took us in their stride, continuing their wanderings, ambling over icy islands, bounding across freezing sea-streams. Others – literally – came to meet us.

Standing on the ship’s bow we saw a mother and two cubs staring up at us – an extraordinary moment of connection with the Arctic’s top predator. With bears becoming scarcer in other parts of the North, those in this little-visited corner of the Russian Far East were, at least for the moment, still bright-eyed, curious – and plentiful.

Eighty per cent of the region’s bears breed on Wrangel or its little sister, Herald Island, collectively known as the ‘Polar Bear Maternity Ward’. “There is no need to bother the bears by following them,” says Nathan Russ, expedition leader and co-owner of Heritage Expeditions, which has – uniquely – been bringing visitors here for a decade, “We like to leave the wildlife as we found it. We can be relaxed. We know we can always find another one.”