Wildlife Photography - High Arctic Photo Tour

The high Arctic beckons

I am off on my high Arctic Wildlife Photo Tour. My journey starts in Oslo, the capital of Norway. Fly north and cross the Arctic Circle with a stopover at Tromso for passport check. Then fly on to Longyearbyen, deep inside the high Arctic. At latitude 78.50 degrees North, it is the most northern 'city' in the world served by regular jet service.

I am on Top Of The World (almost)

The Arctic is the northernmost part of our planet. The area lies above the Arctic Circle (66 degrees, 33 minutes North),  an imaginary line that rings the top of the globe. The Circle is about 1,400 nautical miles south of the North Pole but the High Arctic refers to islands and land mass much higher than 66 degrees, like the archipelago of Svalbard, Ellesmere Island in Canada, Franz Josef land in Russia and the most northern part of Greenland.

The Arctic is melting much faster than expected, and could even be ice-free in summer by the late 2030s, a report from the Arctic Council's Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program suggests. Previous studies had forecast an ice-free North Pole in summer by mid-century.

Polar Bear traversing the ice floes in Svalbard

Board the expedition ship in Longyearbyen, sail north and explore the west coast of Spitsgergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago. Hope to see and photograph Whales, Polar Bears, Walruses and Seals, Arctic Foxes plus a variety of sea birds including the rare Ivory Gull.

Blue Whale (largest animal on Planet Earth, ever) in the high Arctic

Atlantic Walrus frolicking in the high Arctic waters

Cross the Greenland Sea from Spitsbergen to the east coast of Greenland and travel south along the
ice's edge with an eye peeled on the horizon for wildlife and massive icebergs and glaciers. Explore the remote landscape on foot and zodiac, including an Inuit village. Cross the Denmark Strait and end up in Iceland, the Land of Fire and Ice. Stay a few days for more exploration before heading home.

Ice Floes in the high Arctic

Iceberg resembling a piece of Blue Swiss Cheese

There will be no Internet access in the high Arctic, until I arrive in Iceland. In the meantime, you can follow my travels on Facebook and Twitter. See my equipment bag and works on MichaelDanielHo.com

Wildlife Photography - High Arctic Photo Tour

On top of the world (Almost)

Photographing wildlife inside the Arctic Circle

* * *  Back from my High Arctic Wildlife Photo Tour  * * *

I am off to the high Arctic on a wildlife photography shoot in Svalbard, an archipelago deep inside the Arctic Circle, in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Last month, I took the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II to the Upper Amazon and Peruvian Andes for a vigorous field test. Will be performing more real world tests and you can read my review on the camera here.

Atlantic Walrus family in the high Arctic

During the summer months in the high Arctic, there is 24 hour daylight and the weather and seas are unpredictable. It can range from a blustery, snowy day with 40+ knots winds and freezing temperature to sunny, T-shirt weather the next. 

Polar bear foot prints on ice floes

The wildlife in Svalbard is diverse. There is a population of about 3,000 Polar bears on the islands, together with indigenous herds of Reindeer. Arctic foxes, Atlantic Walruses, many species of whales, dolphins, seals and pelagic birds can be found among the ice floes, cliffs and numerous islands and coves.

Polar bear leaping on ice floes

The erratic pattern of ice floes and weather conditions will be a challenge for the ship's captain and my equipment but the Arctic scenery, replete with glaciers and ice cliffs are so spectacular, I will be too engrossed to worry about the rough seas and temperatures, as long as I am properly dressed. 

Virgin ice cliffs goes on for miles in the high Arctic

There are no Internet access on the expedition ship so I have to wait till my return to reconnect. In the meantime, you can see my equipment bag, read stories from my previous tours and see my works on MichaelDanielHo.com. 

Wildlife Photography - Polar Bear Photo Tour in Canadian Sub Arctic

* * *  Read the latest post on my Polar Bear Photo Tour  * * *

I am off to the Canadian sub Arctic, Hudson Bay for a Polar bear photo tour. Although this region is called the sub Arctic, the temperatures are generally even colder than the high Arctic, like Svalbard. The cold winds from the North Pole can bring temperatures down to -40+ degrees Fahrenheit starting in mid Autumn and lasting through late Winter.

The Polar bear is the largest living land carnivore, with adult males growing up to over 8 feet in length and some weighing close to one ton. It is immediately recognizable from the distinctive white color of its thick fur. The only unfurred parts of the body are the foot pads and the tip of its nose, which are black, revealing the dark color of the skin underneath the pelt. The neck of the Polar bear is longer than in other species of bears, and the elongated head has small ears. Polar bears have large strong limbs and huge forepaws which are used as paddles for swimming. The toes are not webbed, but are excellent for walking on snow as they bear non-retractable claws which dig into the snow like ice-picks.

Females are about half the size of males, although a pregnant female with stored fat can exceed 1,000 pounds in weight. Polar bear cubs weigh about 2 lbs at birth. They look similar in appearance to adults, though they have much thinner fur.

There are five countries with Polar bear populations - U.S.A., Russia, Denmark (Greenland), Norway (Svalbard) and Canada. Polar bears are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic on ice-covered waters, from Canada, to Norway, parts of the US, the former USSR and Greenland. The furthest south the Polar bears occur all year round is James Bay in Canada, which is about the same latitude as London, England. During the winter, when the ice extends further south, Polar bears move as far south as Newfoundland and into the northern Bering Sea.

Although Polar bears have no natural predators, male bears sometimes kill young cubs for food or to try and mate with their mothers. Sadly, Polar bears are still being hunted on a quota system by indigenous people and sometime big game hunters. Another big threat to these endangered animals is the warming of the Arctic region and pack ice are forming later and later every year. Polar bears depend on the pack ice to hunt seals and the early ice melt is forcing them to spend more time and energy looking for food and finding fewer seals. They face an uncertain future as the sea ice melt faster and faster in the summer.

Photographing Polar bears is one of the most exciting thing a wildlife photographer can do. They have little fear of man and are highly curious. I have come face too face with them and they are large, powerful apex predators. Click here to see Polar bear photos from my previous tours. You can follow my travels on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram and see my works on MichaelDanielHo.com. I will be providing updates on the tour as time and condition permit.

Canon and WWF - Arctic Climate Change Research

Big male Polar bear traversing ice floes in Svalbard

 Fresh Polar bear tracks on ice floes in Svalbard

As a wildlife photographer and conservationist, I travel to the high Arctic to photograph their floral and fauna and see for myself how climate change has affected the environment at (almost) the top of the world - the archipelago of Svalbard. In particular, Polar bears' feeding and mating patterns are adversely impacted as the sea ice are melting earlier and faster and forming later. You can see more Polar bear photos and Arctic wildlife on my website MichaelDanielHo.com

LONDON, 3rd September 2014 – Canon Europe, world leader in imaging solutions, and WWF International have released findings from two of their research programmes recording the state of the environment and climate change in the Arctic. As part of its role as Conservation Imaging Partner, Canon sponsored WWF International’s recent scientific expeditions to the islands of Svalbard (April 2014), near Norway, and Laptev Sea in Russia (August 2013).

The WWF-Canon & Norwegian Polar Institute’s expedition to Svalbard this year aimed to collect critical data about Europe’s most westerly polar bear population and how the locations of their dens for giving birth are changing. Just three of the 29 adult females encountered by the research team had a cub born that year. Although the researchers cautioned against reading too much into that fact, it is known that in other parts of the Arctic, disappearing sea ice is affecting the bears’ reproductive success.

The samples collected by the research team have also allowed a team of DNA specialists to isolate, for the first time, polar bear DNA from a footprint left in the snow. The next step for the lab at SPYGEN is to see if DNA captured this way can tell researchers more about the individuals that left the tracks. This new technique could dramatically cut the investment required and overcome challenges associated with the way scientists currently capture such information, so monitoring bear populations could be done more easily in future.

The previous WWF-Canon expedition in 2013, to the Taimyr Peninsula in the Laptev Sea, near Siberia, Russia, aimed to determine if there are genetically-distinct Laptev populations of walrus, or whether the animals there are related to one or more of the adjacent populations. Scientists needed to answer this question in order to develop effective status monitoring systems for both species and to determine the actions needed for their protection in an area of increased commercial shipping. The results from the first lab tests showed that Laptev’s walruses are closer to Pacific walrus in genetic makeup than Atlantic walrus, but also show enough differences from both to be considered a distinct population.

The expeditions to Svalbard and the Laptev Sea were preceded by a voyage, “Sailing to Siku” from Greenland through Canada’s High Arctic in 2012, designed to help assess the future management options for that area, and to raise awareness of the Last Ice Area, where summer sea ice is projected to persist longest. Canon sponsored professional photographers to join each expedition: Thorsten Milse, Alexey Ebel and Brutus Östling. Canon imaging equipment was also used by the expeditions’ teams on all three trips to capture images of the wildlife they encountered along the way and record events.

“Our partnership with Canon has left us a valuable legacy,” says Clive Tesar of WWF’s Global Arctic Programme. “It has helped produce new scientific knowledge, it has introduced millions of people worldwide to the challenges faced by a warming Arctic, and it has left us with a wealth of images to introduce millions more to the beauty and importance of the Arctic.”

Susan Stuart, Sustainability Director, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa, commented: “Imaging has a powerful role to play in supporting scientific research and we are proud that Canon expertise has helped WWF record and promote awareness of the climate change. The discoveries from our two most recent Arctic expeditions show how important WWF International’s research in one of the least-explored regions of the world really is.”

Canon Europe has been a conservation partner of WWF International since 1998. The partnership demonstrates Canon Europe’s dedication to a sustainable future in which humans live in harmony with the natural world.