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Voyage to the Land of the Ice Bear: A Circumnavigation of Svalbard (Spitsbergen) |
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HOME PAGE / INTRODUCTION 2005 OF TIGER WALLS & CANYON WRENS: A Naturalist's Journey on the Yampa & Green Rivers IMAGES OF WILDERNESS: Southeast Alaska's Outer Coast aboard the MV Snow Goose RAFTING THE HULAHULA: A River Journey through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge VOYAGE TO THE LAND OF THE ICE BEAR: A Circumnavigation of Svalbard (Spitsbergen) BERING SEA EXPEDITION: Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, the Aleutian Archipelago, and the Pribilofs |
July 6-18, 2005 Leaders: Dr. Al Werner and the Expedition and Naturalist Staff of the M/V Grigoriy Mikheev The name Svalbard (Norse for "cold coast") does little to convey the ice-sculpted magnificence of this remote Norwegian archipelago a world of deep fjords, calving glaciers, electric-blue icebergs, vast sheets of pack ice, sheer sea cliffs, spectacular mountains, flower-filled tundra, and an amazing diversity of wildlife. In the Icelandic Annals of 1194, the terse words "Svalbardr Fundi" (Svalbard Found), pinpoint the first known sighting of Svalbard by a Norse mariner. Anyone who has had the priviledge of cruising to Antarctica and South Georgia or hopes to will fall in love with Svalbard’s equally dramatic scenery, geology, and fascinating wildlife. Located just 600 miles from the North Pole, the Svalbard Archipelago consists of Spitsbergen (the largest) and several smaller islands situated along the edge of the perpetual polar icepack. Our ship for this voyage, the M/V Grigoriy Mikheev, is a modern Russian research and expedition cruising vessel with an ice-strengthened hull specifically designed for travel in the Polar Regions. Built in Finland in 1990, the 46-passenger Grigoriy Mikheev has a large bridge and an open foredeck, comfortable cabins, a dining room serving European cuisine, and Zodiac landing craft which enable shore expeditions and wildlife viewing in otherwise inaccessible areas Our 11-day circumnavigation of Svalbard will explore spectacular ice-dotted fjords, cruise close to ice caps and calving tidewater glaciers, navigate the offshore pack-ice in search of whales, polar bears and other wildlife, and offer as many opportunities as possible for tundra hikes. Svalbard, known by naturalists as the "Land of the Ice Bear," is one of the High Arctic’s richest wildlife sanctuaries. The unusual abundance of wildlife polar bears, arctic foxes, walrus, reindeer, bearded, ringed and harp seals, beluga and Greenland whales, and immense colonies of seabirds is due primarily to warm currents carried north by a branch of the Atlantic’s mighty Gulf Stream. As the frozen sea breaks up, thousands upon thousands of cliff-nesting seabirds thick-billed murres, Atlantic puffins, black guillemots, ivory gulls, black-legged kittiwakes, and dovekies add their voices to a splendid cacophony as they fly between their nests and productive fishing grounds at sea. Photographic opportunities should be superb! We’ll hope to observe walruses, replete from gorging on clams and mussels (90 pounds a day for a 2400-lb. male!), use their 15-inch tusks to haul out on ice floes to rest. We’ll search for polar bears as they follow the retreating pack-ice eastward to hunt ringed seals or into the fjords in pursuit of bearded seals slumbering on floes of glacial ice. Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime expedition to Svalbard! Group Limit: 16 Trip Rating 4 Price Category 1: $4,340 (Twin Private; Deck 4); includes deposits. Deposit: A $500 nonrefundable deposit, payable by credit card, to Oceanwide Expeditions/GMK09, and a $400 deposit to Cloud Ridge Naturalists, payable by check, is required to reserve space. Included: Not Included: |
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Contact: | Cloud Ridge Naturalists 8297 Overland Road Ward Colorado 80481 email > cloudridgeadb@earthlink.net |
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