Animals of the Arctic

We saw quite a selection of arctic animals on our voyage. Below are some of the highlights.

Photo by Henning Thing

This is not the actual Musk Ox that we saw, because we saw a whole herd of them in Greenland, but they were too far away for me to get a good picture. 

We saw many types of whales including the Finn and Bowhead whales pictured above, which were taken by Betsy Wilkening.

A pod of Killer Whales came right up to our ship. They showed a lot of curiosity and one even swam upside down next to us.

We saw several groups of narwhals, which were absolutely amazing. However, they are very hard to photograph, so I have only this no smoking sign to show for it.

Photo by Sven Lindblad

We also saw many types of seals.

We saw lots of evidence of lemmings but only this one up close, who was a pet to an Inuit child.

At Bylot Island we saw thousands of Thick-Billed Murres. They were teaching their little ones how to fly and we kayaked among many adolescents swimming with their parents in the water.

Photo by Sven Lind

Many Kittiwakes and Fulmars were interested in following our ship because as we cracked through the ice, we uncovered little fishes for them to eat.