Thin Ice Blog
After 77 miles in temperatures dipping as low as -42°C, the polar explorers have completed the first phase of their expedition: a speedy 11-day crossing of Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea. Arriving at the Catlin Ice Base at 7:45pm on Wednesday 23 March, the weary team were welcomed with warming cups of tea and a hearty meal from Ice Base Chef Fran Orio.
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Peter Ewins and Rhys Gerholdt of WWF Canada are with an ABC News crew from New York in Wapusk National Park, observing the world’s largest concentration of maternity dens for polar bears.
They shot this lovely footage of a polar bear cub, and another of a polar bear and her offspring, during the trip, showing how one mum and her cub behave as they emerge from a den, and a baby bear playing at the mouth of a den.
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At the Catlin Ice Base conditions are cooler than those faced by the expedition (-37°C) but reasonably calm weather has made setting up camp easier than expected. All 19 tents are erected, and over the week the operations team has put its efforts into preparing two sampling ice holes.
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Listening to the rumble of a twin otter airplane’s engines, squashed beside a huge pile of equipment and with eyes peeled on the scene outside an ice-crusted window; that’s how the explorers and scientists began their Arctic research mission last week. Clear, calm and relatively warm conditions (-32°C) so far have made for a speedy start for the four polar explorers. Their current daily pace is 6-7 nautical miles a day (about 11-13 kilometres).
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Morris had found another set of tracks of a female with single cub (the commonest litter size this year – clear evidence of the continuing declines in mean numbers of cubs emerging from the maternity dens). But on the way there, we came across tracks of a female and THREE cubs!
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Rhys and I awoke to a crystal clear dawn, a numbing -40C again, and the excitement of reconnecting with the female polar bear and her single cub that we had left at sunset yesterday evening. After one of cook Daryl’s splendid tundra breakfasts at Wat’chee lodge, we headed out in the tracked vehicles with top-notch photographers from around the world, and the ABC news crew.
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Last Saturday, we drove on the Beaufort Sea. It was quite amazing. One doesn’t often think about driving on a frozen sea, looking over vast expanses of ice on one side and low headlands on the other. We spotted fish drying racks left on the shingle beaches from the summer and fall fishing seasons, covered in snow and blowing forlornly in the wind.
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We’re now in the middle of nowhere, 40km south of Churchill, to be met by the caterpillar vehicles. Then, an hour crunching over the tundra into the actual lodge, perched atop an esker, overlooking one of the main polar bear denning areas.
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It’s 0530 and my WWF-US colleague Rhys Gerholdt and I are with an ABC News crew from New York, heading up to Wapusk National Park and the world’s largest concentration of maternity dens for polar bears, writes Peter Ewins of WWF Canada.
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