A late night a young female polar bear visited our camp. Photo: Anders Angerbjörn

Hi,

We are back in Pevek after a fantastic expedition to Wrangel Island and Chaun. This blog post will mainly be about Wrangel.

We have collected all kind of different samples. 150 mammoth ivory, beautiful plants, ugly plants and lots of data. Everyone is safe and sound, with many adventures to tell.

The young polar bears are often wandering around the island, curious and inexperienced. One late night a young female polar bear visited our camp. I went out in my long johns tails and went around the corner of the house . The polar bear did not see me and I did not see the polar bear. But Alexei Tichonov saw her from her window and shouted: Go into house! Polar bear very close!

Suprised I turned around and looked at the polar bear just 25 m away. She looked at me just as surprised. I ran back around the house and up the stairs.

Reluctantly she turned around and headed for the river further away. She turned around several times and walked around our house at 100m distance. One of the parkkeepers, Igor, came running with a shovel and flare in an attempt to scare the bear, but he did not set of the flare. Then we all stood on the stairs and photographed the bear. Perhaps it was her first contact with humans.