Wake up Call

by Richard Hill, ARG Member

The first expedition I took part in was to Recherchefjorden in 2023. This was my first trip to Svalbard and into the Arctic environment.

A good friend of mine, Chris Searston was the expedition leader and I can remember him telling me “You will never forget your first impressions when you see the place you are going to spend the next three weeks in”.  Chris was right, those first impressions are unforgettable. What an amazing landscape to make lasting memories in and for memorable encounters to take place.

One such memorable encounter took place early on a Wednesday morning.  At around 3.30am the bear alarms went off with an horrendous bang. We had trained for such a moment for months, being part of the armed support to the group it was our job to keep the team safe. Jumping out of our sleeping bags and throwing on some clothes and boots, Chris and I emerged through the tent door with Chris going right and me going left, loaded guns in hand. Immediately in my vision I could see a polar bear looking straight at me about 50 metres away, and I can remember saying to Chris, “Polar bear!” within seconds, but it seemed like minutes, I felt a hand on my shoulder reassuring me that Chris was by my side.

The pawprints disappeared into the icy water

The Polar bear just stood there watching us, sniffing the air thinking of food, perhaps? We decided to shoot another flare into the air to try and scare it off, and, as the flare went bang, the bear flinched and ran away, going out of sight as it entered a gully.  A minute later it had stopped on a ridge and started to watch us again for a couple of minutes before disappearing out of sight, never to be seen again. Nick, another member of the support team, and I, got ready quickly to go and track the polar bear to make sure it really had gone, and we found Polar bear paw prints on the sand along the shore line before they disappeared into the icy water.

This is an experience I will never forget and I can shut my eyes and still see the grey muddy coated bear standing there staring at me thinking is this food or not.

Chris said it was an experience in a million and to happen on a first expedition was incredibly rare, as you could go to the Arctic many times and not even see one Polar bear, let alone come as close as we did.

This wake-up call by a Polar bear is something I often reflect on and is a big part of the reason why the Arctic has got firmly under my skin and, as Chris says “You have caught the Arctic flu and you will not be able to shake it off, no matter what you do”.

Richard Hill, ARG Member.