The polar bear gets the brochure cover and the other mammals get the sightings. On most Arctic voyages you will see walrus, musk oxen or reindeer before you see a bear, closer, for longer, and on foot. They are the animals of the landings rather than the ice, and knowing where they are changes how you read a week. This is who lives on the shore, where, and what the odds are.
In short
Four animals, four coasts. Walrus on the beaches of Svalbard and the ice of Baffin Bay. Musk oxen on the tundra of Greenland and the Canadian islands. Reindeer and caribou almost everywhere there is grass. The Arctic fox everywhere there is something to steal.
Walrus
A tonne of animal on a gravel beach, in a heap of a hundred, smelling of fish. The Atlantic walrus was hunted almost to extinction in Svalbard over three centuries and protected in 1952, when a few hundred remained. Aerial counts by the Norwegian Polar Institute found 3,886 in 2012 and a further rise in 2018, with calves now seen at the haul-outs again, which is the measure of recovery. The males haul out on the west coast in summer, at Poolepynten, Kapp Lee, Smeerenburg and Torellneset, and the law now keeps boats 150 metres off the beach, at five knots, which is why the best encounter is on foot at a marked distance with a guide.
In the Canadian Arctic the walrus are on the floes of Croker Bay and the islands of Baffin Bay, seen from the Zodiacs in August, and in Greenland in Melville Bay and the Thule district. The ivory tusks, up to a metre long, are for hauling out onto ice and for rank, not for fighting. Odds: very good in Svalbard from July, good in the Passage, a gift anywhere else.
Musk oxen
A survivor of the ice age, closer to a goat than to an ox, with a coat of qiviut eight times warmer than sheep’s wool and a habit of standing in a circle with the calves inside when threatened. They are the animals of East Greenland: the herds of Kong Oscar Fjord, Rypefjord and the Bear Islands graze within sight of the landings in August and September, and a voyage into Scoresby Sund without a musk ox is rare. In West Greenland the herd around Kangerlussuaq descends from 27 yearlings moved there from the east coast in 1962 and 1965; by 1990 there were 2,600, and today they are seen on the drive from the airstrip to the ship.
In the Canadian Arctic they live on Devon, Ellesmere and the islands of the Passage, seen on the tundra behind Dundas Harbour and Radstock Bay. Odds: almost certain in East and West Greenland, likely in the Passage. Give them room; a bull that lowers its head is not posing.
Reindeer and caribou
The Svalbard reindeer is its own subspecies, short-legged, thick-necked and unafraid, with no predators on the islands and a population that recovered from a few hundred after protection in 1925 to more than twenty thousand. You see them on almost every landing on Spitsbergen, grazing the tundra beside the group, and in July with calves. In Greenland the wild caribou of the west coast share the Kangerlussuaq range with the musk oxen. In Labrador the antlers on every beach belong to the George River and Torngat herds, seen on the hillsides above Nachvak and Hebron in September.
Arctic fox
The smallest predator on the shore and the busiest, white in winter and brown or blue-grey in summer, seen around every bird cliff and every settlement in Svalbard and Greenland. The Svalbard foxes live on the eggs and chicks of the guillemot colonies and the leftovers of the bears, and the ones at Ny-Ålesund and Longyearbyen have learnt where the people are. Odds: likely in Svalbard, especially at Alkefjellet and the bird cliffs of Hornsund; possible in Greenland and Canada.
The others
- Arctic hares: Greenland and Canada, white in autumn, on almost every tundra landing in Scoresby Sund and the Passage. None in Svalbard.
- Lemmings: the engine of the Greenland and Canadian tundra, boom and bust, which decides how many foxes and owls you see. None in Svalbard.
- Arctic wolves: Northeast Greenland and Ellesmere Island, white, rare, and a lifetime sighting if one crosses the tundra at Kong Oscar Fjord.
- Black bears: the Torngat Mountains of Labrador hold the most northerly black bears on earth, seen above the treeline on the Nachvak hillsides in September.
- Seals: ringed and bearded seals on the floes, harbour seals at Prins Karls Forland in Svalbard, hooded and harp seals off Greenland. The reason the bears are there.
Seeing them well
The land animals are the reason the landings matter more than the ship. A walk with a naturalist who reads tracks and droppings finds the fox den and the reindeer calf; a Zodiac cruise finds the walrus on the beach. Keep the distance the guides set, which is the law in Svalbard and good sense everywhere, and bring the binoculars you brought for the bear. The best photographs of the Arctic’s mammals are taken from a tussock, sitting still, with the animal walking into the frame.
Skeldal, Kong Oscar Fjord, East Greenland. A group of musk oxen on the tundra, photographed on a Swan Hellenic SH Vega landing.
Questions we are asked
Can we walk among the reindeer in Svalbard?
They walk among you. The Svalbard reindeer has never been hunted by anything with four legs and treats a landing party as scenery. The guides keep the group still and the reindeer come within metres.
Where is the best place to see walrus?
Svalbard from July: Poolepynten in Isfjorden, Kapp Lee on Edgeøya, Smeerenburg in the north-west. The haul-outs are marked on the ship’s chart and visited on foot at a set distance.
Are musk oxen dangerous?
Only if approached. A herd that forms its circle has told you everything. The guides keep the group at a distance the animals accept, and the photographs are better for it.
Which voyage shows the most land mammals?
East Greenland in September for musk oxen and hares, Svalbard in July for walrus, reindeer and fox, the Labrador coast for caribou and black bears. We tell you which sailing suits what you want to see.
Read polar bears: where, when and the odds for the animal everyone asks about first, or when to go for the month.