Every guest who calls us about the Arctic asks the same question in the first five minutes, and the honest answer is longer than yes or no. Polar bears are why most people go north, they are the one animal no operator can promise, and the odds of seeing one depend on the month, the coast, the ship and, since 2025, the law. This is what we know from the deck, and what we tell guests before they book.
In short
The IUCN estimates around 26,000 polar bears across nineteen subpopulations. Three of those populations are the ones expedition ships sail through: the Barents Sea around Svalbard, the Lancaster Sound and Baffin Bay bears of the Canadian Arctic, and the East Greenland and Davis Strait bears. Each behaves differently, and each has a season.
What a polar bear is, briefly
The largest land carnivore on earth, a male weighing 350 to 700 kilograms, a marine mammal by classification because it lives on the sea ice and hunts in the water. Its prey is the ringed seal and the bearded seal, caught at breathing holes and on the floes, which is why the bear follows the ice: north in summer as it retreats, south in autumn as it forms. Cubs are born in snow dens in December and January and emerge in March and April, which is why Svalbard keeps ships 500 metres from bears in spring. A bear on land in summer is usually a bear waiting for the ice to come back.
Where you see them, and when
Svalbard, June to early August
The Barents Sea population of around 3,000 bears is the one most Australians see, because Svalbard is the easiest High Arctic to reach. The bears are on the drift ice north of Spitsbergen in June, close enough for a seven-night voyage to reach, and along the shores and fjords where the ice lingers, Hornsund and the north-east in particular. By August they have gone north with the ice, and the longer voyages follow them to Sjuøyane and Kvitøya. Since January 2025 ships and Zodiacs must stay 300 metres away, 500 in spring, so the sighting is from the ship or the boat, through binoculars, and it is still the most exciting hour of the voyage.
The Canadian Arctic, August
Lancaster Sound and Baffin Bay hold some 5,000 bears between them, and August in the Northwest Passage is the most reliable bear coast we know: mothers and cubs on the beaches of Prince Regent Inlet, bears on the scree above Port Leopold, bears at the Hudson’s Bay hut at Fort Ross. The ice has gone from the shore and the bears wait on it, which brings them to the water’s edge and the Zodiacs to a distance the bears choose.
Labrador, September
The Davis Strait bears come ashore in the Torngat Mountains in September, when the ice is gone and the char are running, and this is the coast where we have had the closest encounters, always from the boats with Inuit bear guards ashore. Akpatok Island in Ungava Bay in late August, with bears waiting under the murre cliffs for chicks to fall, is the other. Read Labrador and Newfoundland for the route.
East Greenland, August and September
A smaller population spread along a thousand kilometres of coast, seen on the beaches of Vikingebugt and Hekla Havn in Scoresby Sund and on the sea ice of the national park. Less reliable than Svalbard or Canada, and more memorable when it happens, because the coast is empty.
The spring sea ice, April and May
Only Le Commandant Charcot sails this early, into the fast ice of Baffin Bay and the Blosseville Coast, where the bears hunt the seal pups on the ice beside the ship. Tracks across new snow, a bear at a breathing hole, the hunters of Kullorsuaq who know every one of them. The most intimate bear voyages in the Arctic, for guests who want the ice as much as the animal.
The honest odds
- Svalbard, seven nights in June or July: most voyages see at least one bear, usually on the ice from the ship. Some see several. A few, in a bad ice year, see none.
- Svalbard, ten nights or more: the odds rise with every day in the north-east. Multiple sightings are the norm.
- The Northwest Passage in August: very likely, often daily along the Somerset and Devon coasts.
- Labrador in September: likely, in the Torngat fjords and at Akpatok.
- East Greenland: possible, not probable. Go for the fjords and count a bear as a gift.
- West Greenland, Iceland, the Pole: Disko Bay has none; the Pole voyages see them on the ice between Svalbard and 85° North, rarely beyond.
We do not promise a bear, and we are wary of anyone who does. What we promise is a ship whose team knows where to look, a month when the bears are where the ship can go, and the truth about the odds before you pay a deposit.
How a sighting happens
Someone on the bridge, usually an officer or the expedition leader, sees a cream-coloured dot on the ice that is the wrong shape for a floe. The call goes out, the ship slows, the deck fills, and the captain turns to bring the bear onto the sunlit side at the legal distance. If the bear is hunting, the ship stops and waits. If the bear is curious, it comes closer on its own, and that is the encounter the rules are written to allow. Twenty minutes to two hours, in silence, and then the voice says thank you and the ship moves on.
Seeing them well
- Binoculars: 8x42, your own, around your neck from breakfast. At 300 metres a bear is a dot to the eye and an animal through glass.
- A long lens: 400 millimetres at least, 600 if you have it, and a crop-sensor body helps. Phones do not reach.
- The bridge wings and the bow: where the officers look from, and where the first call comes.
- The 2am call: the best bears of our voyages have come at night under the midnight sun. Sleep in your thermals.
- Patience, and the ice: bears are where the seals are, and the seals are where the ice is. The voyages that spend a day in the pack see more than the ones that pass it.
Bears and people
In Svalbard it is illegal to leave Longyearbyen without a rifle, every landing has armed bear guards from the ship, and a bear on the beach cancels the landing without discussion. In Canada and Greenland the guards are Inuit from the nearest community, who read the shore better than anyone. The serious incidents in Svalbard’s recent history have involved people camping or travelling on land, not expedition landings run under the AECO rules, and the rules are why. Respect the flags, stay with the group, and the bear stays a sighting.
Questions we are asked about polar bears
Will we definitely see a polar bear?
No one can say definitely, and we never do. Svalbard in June and July and the Northwest Passage in August give the best odds we know. We tell you the honest chance for the sailing you are considering.
How close do we get?
In Svalbard the law sets 300 metres, 500 in spring. In Canada and Greenland the bear and the expedition leader decide, and encounters from the Zodiacs at a hundred metres happen on the Labrador and Somerset coasts. The bear always has the choice.
Which ship is best for bears?
The one in the right place in the right month, with a team that spends the day looking. Small ships that spend time in the ice see more than large ships that pass it. We tell you which teams we have sailed with.
Are the bears endangered?
Listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, with sea-ice loss the main threat. The Barents Sea bears live in the fastest-warming part of the Arctic. Seeing them responsibly, from ships that follow the rules, is part of why the rules exist.
Read when to go for the month, the Svalbard page for the coast, or tell us what you hope to see and we tell you the odds.