walrus – David Kotz

Svalbard wildlife

A belated post to share photos from my visit in March.

As regular readers know, I spent ten days on an incredible cruise around the arctic archipelago of Svalbard, latitude 77-80º north, in late March. I was there for a week-long photography workshop with Muench Workshops, aboard the MS Virgo, and captured over 12,000 raw images in ten days! It has taken me many months to winnow this collection down to just a precious few that I want to share with you. My earlier posts included photo/video galleries with an overview of the trip, the town of Longyearbyen, walking on ‘fast ice’, and landing on the windswept Moffen Island at 80º north during a snow squall. Today I’m going to highlight some of the wildlife we encountered, and share three new photo/video galleries.

Bearded seal on an ice floe – Forlandsundet, Svalbard.

Moffen Island, Svalbard

Snow and walrus at 80ºN.

Today was not a typical hike, by any stretch of the imagination! While a light snowfall whipped across the featureless arctic landscape of Moffen Island – a tiny islet three hours’ sail north of Svalbard’s mainland at 80ºN – we walked across the southern spit to photograph a group of walruses that had hauled out of the sea for a long nap.