It actually was not that cold ! You would be surprised, the temperature was pretty much constantly around 10 and 12°C. But then it was summer and it was also constant daylight !

So we decided to go kayaking for 12 days in the Svalbard Archipelago with 66° Nord, a french company specialising in polar trips… and well, even if its a bit pricey, I absolutely recommend this ! It was absolutely fantastic !

On the left, our camp for the first couple of days,  while we learned about SECURITY. Yup, I had no idea when I accepted to come on board for this trip but there are actually more Polar Bears in the Svalbard Archipelago than people !

Polar Bears and Security in Spitzberg

For 2500 inhabitants, there are approximately 3000 polar bears !

The danger is so real that no one is allowed un-armed outside of the main settlements !

What about the protection of the Polar Bear? Well, it is actually extremelly well protected under Norwegian law. You are not allowed to shoot a bear unless you follow a specific protocol. If a bear is shot and killed, you are not allowed to touch it and have to call the authorities that will investigate the death of the bear. The protocol serves as insurance and proof that the bear was trully going to kill you and eat you and you really killed it in self-defense and you should not have to go to prison.

You can find a nice little PDF about the precautionary principle concerning Polar Bears in Svalbard here

So the very big gun was handled by our amazing guide, who literaly slept with it ! Then there was a smaller explosive gun in the eating tent (picture on the right) and finally we each had little explosive “pens” that had to be on us AT ALL TIMES except when sleeping, when they should be at arms reach (which you can see around our necks on the very last picture).

A bit scary huh ? When I heard all this it was like… “omg, why did I come here???”

As part of the security protocol, nothing smelly and no food of any kind was allowed in our sleeping tents. We ate in the “eating tent”, the mess, which was always set up between the food storage and the sleeping tents.

Enough with security though, I would not want to scare you !! Or is that too late ?

You do have to remember that since we were kayaking, we were completely silent (except for the constant chatting of course…) and the wild animals did not fear us, so many seals actually came up to the boats to see what was happening, and we saw so many birds !

Oh, I forgot to mention the night watch… as part of the security, one person had to be constantly moving around the camp, the movement making the polar bears cautious and less curious to approach the camp, and of course the person being able to hopefully see the polar bear before it got too close ! It sounds horrifying at first but remember that it is never dark, it is really peaceful.

During my first terrifying watch, I was walking around the camp when a polar fox came my way ! It stopped about a 200m away, we stared at each other for a couple of minutes and then it just walked back from where it had come ! After this, I was looking forward to the “night” watches !

During another watch, I was checking out the horizon and saw something that was not there minutes before, gave me quite a scare actually ! But it turned out to be a couple of huuugeee male reindeers just walking around ! They came to me, stopped to smell me from 15m away and then circled around the camp to continue on their journey. Absolutely magical !

Oh… one watch did give me quite a fright… my sister had just finished her watch and when whe woke me for mine, she told me she had heard noises by the island in front of our cove. So I kept and eye for that… until I heard a noise. It was something coming out of the water to breathe, something very big and very scary. Since it was coming to the surface to breathe, it had to be a mammal, a seal, a whale or a bear… But the animal came back up to breathe only a few minutes after ! A seal can stay under water for as long as an hour and whales even longer ! So I started freaking out, I was frantically trying to find the animal through my binoculars but it kept on coming closer and I could not find it ! I had one hand on the guide’s tent, about to wake him up, hoping my running toward the tent had scared it away but then it breathed again. So I woke up our guide. Not even fully awake yet, he was already completely alert, jumping out of the tent, gun in hand and asking me what had happenned and where was it !?

So when I said I was not sure…. yeah, he did not like it. And of course the animal did NOT come back to breathe when the guide was there ! It was taunting me ! So the guide went back to sleep telling me to wake him if it came back and I woke up the next person for their watch and tried to fall asleep.

The next morning was of course very funy, everyone making fun of me but slowly realising that something might have actually happenned. My sister had said a big group of animals were on the island in front and our guide thought they might be walruses. Walruses can weight up to a ton and if the kayaks passed too close the herd, they could attack and there wouldn’t be many kayaks left to speak of…  So we went for a walk to check if they were along the coast.

The other danger we faced was terrifying enough it could even scare Polar Bears away ! The Arctic Stern might be only 33 to 36 cm (13–14 in) from the tip of its beak to the tip of its tail, it is still quite the beast.

If you get close to the nest, they WILL attack you. They will scare you and peck you with their beack and, it has actually happenned, if you still don’t back off, they will shit on you. No kidding. You should have seen our friend’s beanie when he came for breakfast after the attack ! Hilarious.

I believe we got lucky, we had an incredible weather, an increadible team, an amazing guide… It was an absolutely incredible experience and probably the best I have had so far !