Polar Bears, Day Six...

We have been checking on the northern lights in the evenings and some of the nature photographers have gotten some pictures of them, but nothing to get excited about. Last night at about midnight we looked out and they were amazing. There were streaks of green, then red, then green again and they were dancing in the sky. It was the most amazing light show I had ever seen. We ran inside to get our cameras and parkas and by the time we got back outside it was if someone had turned off a light switch. There were just faint green streaks left. What a tease!

mom nursing

Me by a polar bear den

Today we drove for about three hours and finally caught up with the polar bear mom and cubs from yesterday. She had bedded down in the willows, so it wasn’t ideal, but we did get a few good polar bear pictures. We watched her and her babies sleep for a couple hours, had lunch, then had to turn around. The amazing thing about yesterday is that it was about -15--20 degrees. It felt like it was almost t-shirt weather...almost. On the way back we visited her den. It was amazing to see how small the entrance to the den really was. It was hard to believe that an animal as large as a polar bear could even fit in that hole.The den looked like it went back about ten feet. Tomorrow's another day. With some luck maybe the polar bear on Fletcher Lake will come out of her den too, so we can get some good baby polar bear photos. Fingers crossed.

Inside the den.