弗兰格尔岛自然保护区

The announcement came over the ship’s PA system at 3:35am: “There’s a polar bear dead ahead of us.” Within minutes passengers appeared up on deck, some still in their PJs, looking at the polar bear swimming near the ship just off Wrangel Island, in the eastern Russian Arctic. It was a bright, sunny day (the sun had risen at 1:44am), and this was our first polar bear sighting of several to come. We were 500km north of the Arctic Circle and the ocean was unusually calm; we could see the bear’s head reflected in the water as he turned to look at us.We were on a 16-day cruise on board Hapag-Lloyd’s Hanseatic, one of the few non-Russian ships to be allowed to visit Wrangel Island. Indeed, we saw no other tourists during the entire trip. It was fascinating enough to explore the Arctic tundra most of us had hitherto only read about in school. But we could add to that the experience of being with the people who live far north of Siberia, with their Russian/post-Soviet or Eskimo heritage.We visited villages like Lorino where traditionally costumed local Eskimo dancers sang and danced the stories of their Chukchi ancestors for us. We sampled local food: a delicious fish soup made from Arctic char, gray whale and walrus muktuk (blubber and skin), reindeer meat. Wrangel Island eventually came into view and thankfully the sea ice had broken up enough for us to visit one of Russia’s most restricted nature reserves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve, best known for having the greatest number of polar bear dens in the world. Considering that the summer temperature hovered just above zero, we were amazed to see so many plants and flowers like the forget-me-nots when we went ashore on Komsomol Beach. Now it was polar bear time. We spotted them swimming and walking on ice floes, including a mother with cub – but were glad not to see them when we went ashore, guarded by one of the guides armed with a rifle. A couple of days later we saw 100 walruses, males weighing up to 2,000kg with big tusks, lounging on the beach or swimming near the shore.And after a day of exploring ashore on the tundra or afloat in Zodiacs in the sea ice, what a treat it was to return to the 184-passenger Hanseatic - according to the Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships, the only five-star expedition-cruise ship worldwide. And so we sailed back to Nome, Alaska, where our trip had started after a charter flight from Vancouver, grateful for the mostly good weather and lack of mosquitoes, treasuring our memories of the eastern Russian Arctic tundra in summer.

Clearly and wholeheartedly I have to say that I LOVE Wrangel Island. It was not a love at first sight, as first sight of Wrangel Island was cold, foggy, and rather deserted from wildlife.We did not just do the tour around the island with several landings, but had the pleasure to stay on the island for 10 days.When you are ON THE ISLAND, meaning on the overland trips, which are additional building blocks Heritage Expedition offers …… the weather conditions change dramatically, the arctic is a desert, and then on land the micro climate provided for us sunny and warm days, with cool nights. And the island wildlife experience just exploded …… abundant snowy owls, jaegers, sandpipers, snow geese and other birds ( from all species always adults and chicks to see ), especially I loved the arctic foxes, we saw on each day dens, sometimes with up to 14 curious and for us photographers very cooperative and playful pups ! In addition there were a few rare reindeer to see and lots of muskoxen, plus lots of polar bears. Including females with cubs, however I preferred to see the polar bears and walruses on sea / pack ice while circling the island on the Spirit of Enderby and on zodiac as on land they look sort off displaced from their preferred habitat and they were normally rather shy. Not to be forgotten are the lemmings, which provide the necessary food for my beloved arctic foxes and snowy owls Next to the animal life, there was also obvious the – for arctic regions - rich and colourful plant life. On the trip from Anadyr to Wrangel and back (10 days), plus on the two time 4 days circling Wrangel Island I took ca. 4000 images ( in combined 18 days ) and on the 10 days on Wrangel I took 12 000 images alone !This clearly shows the beauty and power of this place.For this reason I definitely plan to return to Wrangel in one of the next years again with Heritage Expeditions, again with a dedicated group of nature wildlife photographer friends ! It was a real pleasure to experience this magical place, I had thanked Rodney Russ, the owner of Heritage Expeditions and our mega capable expedition leader on this trip plus Alexander Gruzdev, the Wrangel Island Nature Reserve Director, several times, for working so hard together to make this trip possible for our group !All of our group was clearly aware of the multiyear ( !!! ) efforts by Heritage Expeditions which were needed to put this trip finally in place and that we were mega mega mega fortunate to be the first group to experience this arctic gem so closely and so extensively. I realize each day more, since I am back, how special this trip was / is !!! One of my friends has been on trips to the high arctic 8 times and already after 1 day on Wrangel Island he said to me that this trip is his best ever. It is logic that for this region you need a long lens or a camera with good digital tele zoom. When we spotted polar bears on the ice, the ship stopped and zodiacs were within 10 minutes in the water for all passengers to have a chance to get as close as possible to the wildlife. One evening the ship manouevered itself near to a relaxed polar bear on ice and stopped there for several hours ( over dinner ). After dinner the bear actually was curious enough to come maybe close than 50 m to the ship and passengers were making full frame images of the bear in beautiful sunset colours with their smartphones !!! This is nature expedition at its best, always come prepared properly with proper gear ( as mentioned above ) and then also always a bit of luck is required for finding cooperative wildlife ! The Heritage Expedition trip itself: all logistics, food, accommodation, support on- and off-board the ship, professionalism and sympathy of the complete staff, from room service via the kitchen crew to expedition guides and leaders, not to forget the NZ based office crew, just was flawless, as usual, as experienced so many times on trips to both subantarctic / antarctic and arctic regions before, one cannot return from one Heritage Expeditions trip without immediately booking one for the coming year  The latter is actually the only downside I know about Heritage Expeditions … but hey, this is an absolute deluxe problem, of which I would LOVE to have more. :-) 

I am sad to say how disappointed I was with my trip with this outfit. First, though, the New Zealand crew was nice, the "hotel" of the ship was well-run, and the food on the ship (Spirit of Enderby) was superb. The problem was that this trip was supposed to be a photography tour for arctic wildlife, and, because of a constellation of factors, we were kept at distance from all animals, the exception being Zodiac rides to the sea cliffs to photograph birds. Our Russian hosts were overheard to say we needed to stay 1000 meters from any animal, even while on the ship. As an example (repeated in different ways during the trip), when we sighted a polar bear about a half-mile away, we asked if the ship could move closer. The captain said no. The best photos showed a speck-sized bear on the ice.The Heritage Expedition leader then made an overhead announcement about our wonderful photo opportunity. If you want a cruise to experience the arctic and see the Siberian coast, and if you are looking for a clean ship with great food, this tour is absolutely fine, but it's not for wildlife photography.