Char fishing and polar bear photo safari

August is one of the best times of the year to fish arctic char and to observe polar bears. During this period the chars are going up rivers by thousands and the polar bears and following their moves. A few days ago we went on a photo safari on the Ungava coast where we spotted and tracked two huge polar bears.

The first animal was spotted sleeping in the middle of the tundra and miles away from the coast. We managed to get very close from the bear, shoot a few dozen photos of the sleeping bear, and then he woke up and went fishing for arctic char. We followed him for more than half a mile and watched him dive, swim and chase fish.

Finally the bear spotted us and ran away. Then we looked for more bears and found another sleeping bear and this time the bear was in such a deep sleep and we could have touched him but no one’s of us want to volunteer… so we decided to take photos only.

On our return walk we spotted a third bear and that one had the wind in his favor and ran away from us. What a great polar bear photo safari we had that day.

Photo credit: Christoph Schenk, Switzerland.