Spitsbergen

Breathtaking scenery is everywhere on Spitsbergen and starts as your flight descends through a glacier-hung valley to Longyearbyen’s airport. Glaciers and ice-caps are rent by dark ‘Spits’ or steep-sided mountains that give the island its name. It is almost as far north as you can get (comfortably!) and still be on land. With an area approximately that of the Netherlands and Belgium together and a population that would not fill a large British village Spitsbergen can rightly claim to be Europe’s largest wilderness!

A glacier snout is visible just two kilometres up the valley from our little hotel! The diminutive Svalbard race of Reindeer graze contentedly between buildings and you’ll likely soon catch sight of an Arctic Fox scurrying past the hotel. At the furthest extent of the Gulf Stream’s influence Spitsbergen has a surprising 180 species of flowering plant and virtually all can be found around Longyearbyen. Abundant Mountain Avens looks superb amidst the barren landscape. Another popular ‘townie’ is the beautiful endemic Svalbard Poppy Papaver dahlianum whose creamy-yellow flowers decorate lichen and sedge dotted turf throughout. Another beauty is the White Arctic Bell Heather Cassiope tetragona and this flowers prolifically by the hotel. Indeed Spitsbergen has two endemic poppies – we’ll also see scree-loving Papaver cornwallisense. Mounds of creamy Saxifraga cespitosa mixes with Saxifraga cernua and pretty Pedicularis hirsuta. In fact saxifrages are the most diverse genus here with fourteen species and we’ll encounter yellow hirculus and aizoides, tall hieracifolia, and tiny hyperborea. The endemic Saxifraga svalbardensis flowers with Dwarf Golden Saxifrage and Pygmy and Tundra Buttercups. In sheltered spots Boreal Jacob’s Ladder puts forth its exquisite blue blooms.

The braided channels and marshes that descend Adventdalen are home to some fabulous plants. Saxifraga platysepala has pretty yellow flowers hardly noticed because of the brilliant red runners that loop out from the leaf rosettes. The gorgeous white woolly red-flowered Pedicularis dasyantha blooms with Lapland, Snow and Sulphur-coloured Buttercups as well as the sweetly-scented creamy Svalbard Buttercup. Beautiful Red (we call them Grey, but here they really are red) Phalaropes feed along streams and we’ll encounter Arctic and possibly Long-tailed Skuas. Purple Braya flowers on dry flats with Saxifraga oppositifolia – the latter is quite possibly the commonest flowering plant on Spitsbergen and colours whole areas purple!

It is Little Auks that give Fuglefjella its name – tens of thousands of them fly back and forth to a breeding colony amid a huge boulder field. A dozen species of Draba occur on Spitsbergen and here we’ll encounter many of them – white daurica, subcapitata, nivalis and lactea and yellow alpina, micropetala, corymbosa and oxycarpa. There’s also the delightful little campion Silene uralensis with its pink-veined inflated calyx.

The second part of our great Arctic experience is a clockwise circumnavigation of Spitsbergen amid continuously improbable scenery. You can expect to come across that most magnificent denizen of the Arctic, the Polar Bear, likely on several occasions. Mother Polar Bears and their cubs seek seal prey under the snouts of glaciers while lugubrious Walruses haul out on sand-bars, their ivory tusks gleaming in the midnight sun. As well as Ringed Seals we’ll also encounter the larger Bearded Seal and maybe Common and Harp Seals too. Groups of ghostly-white Belugas and their dusky coloured youngsters pass serenely as the midnight sun lowers in the sky. Spitsbergen’s own race of Reindeer graze on flats decorated with the delicate Svalbard Poppy and Windflower. Abundant Saxifrages include yellow hirculus and platysepala, creamy cespitosa, endemic svalbardensis and lovely oppositifolia, the latter so common the landscape turns purple. Bright pink mounds of Silene acaulis, heaths of white Cassiope and beautiful blue Boreal Jacob’s Ladder make it a colourful show.

Abundance rather than species richness is the hallmark of the high Arctic summer. You’ll quickly see your first Brünnich’s Guillemot and soon you’ll have seen your millionth! Little Auks are abundant too and we’ll visit a breeding colony on the little island of Fuglesangen which literally means ‘bird song’ and refers to the laughing calls of these tiny alcids. We’ll sit at the edge of the colony with birds coming and going just yards away – they are too busy bringing food to their young to worry about us! We’ll visit several ‘bird cliffs’ by zodiac or by mooring the ship right under them! They are the favoured haunt of Arctic Foxes. Immaculate King Eider and Ivory Gull are two specialities and we’ll also encounter Sabine’s Gull, the delightful Red Phalarope and everywhere smart Snow Buntings offer their cheery little song. And you’ve twenty-four hours of daylight to enjoy it all in!