What's the best trip for seeing polar bears?
By Aspen Travel Advisors · Last verified · Counts drawn live from the Virtuoso-sourced atlas
For the surest sighting, go to Churchill, Manitoba, in late October or early November, when bears gather on the Hudson Bay shore waiting for the sea ice and you watch them from tundra vehicles, often close. For a bear in a wilder setting, on pack ice or patrolling a coast, take a small expedition ship around Svalbard between June and August and accept fewer, more distant sightings.
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You'll hear back within 24 hours.If seeing polar bears is the whole point, Churchill is the answer. Each autumn the bears of western Hudson Bay come ashore near the town and wait for the bay to freeze so they can return to hunting seals. For a few weeks they are concentrated in a small area of flat, snowy tundra, and specially built tundra vehicles drive out among them. In a good week you see bears every day, sometimes many in a day, and some walk right up to the vehicle. The trade-off is that the setting is the same each day, the trip is short and cold, and you are watching from behind glass or from an open viewing platform rather than exploring.
Svalbard is a different holiday that happens to include polar bears. A small expedition ship circles the archipelago or pushes north to the edge of the pack ice, and the bears are one sighting among walrus, Arctic fox, reindeer, seabird cliffs and glaciers, under round-the-clock daylight. Most voyages see bears, but not every one, and the bear is often a cream-coloured shape on the ice watched through binoculars or a long lens. Our atlas holds 153 Arctic voyages and 4 Churchill itineraries, the latter led by operators such as Natural Habitat (18 itineraries in all), so both are easy to book. The choice is really between certainty and closeness on one side and wildness and variety on the other.
Churchill and Svalbard side by side
| Churchill, Manitoba | Svalbard, Norway | |
|---|---|---|
| Best season | Late October to mid-November | June to August |
| How you watch | From a tundra vehicle on the ground | From the ship's deck and by Zodiac |
| Typical distance | Often close, sometimes beside the vehicle | Usually at a distance; long lens needed |
| Odds of a sighting | Very high in peak weeks | Good on most voyages, not guaranteed |
| Number of bears | Often several a day in peak weeks | Often a handful over a voyage, sometimes none |
| Setting | Flat snowy tundra and frozen shoreline | Sea ice, fjords, glaciers, mountains |
| Other wildlife | Arctic fox, ptarmigan, perhaps gyrfalcon | Walrus, reindeer, Arctic fox, seabirds, whales |
| Light | Short days, dark nights, chance of aurora | Midnight sun, no aurora |
| Getting there | Fly from Winnipeg; no road to Churchill | Fly to Longyearbyen via Oslo or Tromsø |
| Trip length | Usually under a week | Usually eight to twelve days |
| Who it suits | Bears first, photographers wanting close frames | Travellers wanting a full Arctic expedition |
Neither is better in the abstract. Travellers who come home disappointed from Churchill usually wanted an expedition; travellers disappointed by Svalbard usually wanted a guaranteed close bear.
What a sighting is actually like
In Churchill the vehicle stops, the engine goes off and you wait. A bear asleep in the willows lifts its head, stands, and wanders over to sniff the tyres, or two young males rear up and spar in slow motion on the shoreline. You are elevated above the bear and safe, and the encounters last as long as the bear stays. The limits are the window glass, the other guests on the same side of the vehicle, and the fact that everything happens in the same few miles of tundra.
In Svalbard the call usually comes from the bridge, often at an odd hour because the light never ends. The ship slows and edges toward the ice, and the bear is a speck that becomes an animal as you close. Sometimes it is a mother with cubs on a floe, sometimes a bear on a seal kill with a fox waiting nearby, sometimes a bear walking a beach below a bird cliff. The ship holds back at a respectful distance under Norway's rules, so the frame is wide and wild rather than tight and personal. When it works, it is the image people mean when they picture a polar bear in its own world.
Ship size and season in Svalbard
In Svalbard the ship matters more than the brand on it.
- Small is the point. Norway now bars ships carrying more than 200 passengers from most of Svalbard's protected areas, which is where much of the bear country is. A smaller ship also lands everyone at once and gets more Zodiac time.
- Ice class decides how far north you can go. Later in summer the pack ice retreats north, and a ship that can work along the ice edge has better odds than one that cannot.
- June usually has more ice close to Spitsbergen, so bears can be nearer the fjords and the scenery is whiter. By August the ice has pulled back and voyages range further, but the coasts are more open for full circumnavigations.
- Rules on approach distances and landings were tightened recently, so the close encounters of older photographs are less likely now. That is a good thing for the bears, and worth knowing before you choose a lens.
- Bears can be anywhere ashore, so every landing is preceded by armed guides scouting the site. Expect landings to be cancelled when a bear is near; that cancellation is often your sighting.
Frequently asked
Can I see polar bears and the northern lights on the same trip?
In Churchill, yes. October and November nights are long and dark and Churchill sits under the auroral oval, so clear nights can bring both. In Svalbard in summer, no: the midnight sun means there is no darkness to see an aurora.
Do Greenland or Northwest Passage voyages see polar bears?
Sometimes, but less reliably. Bears are spread thinly across Greenland and the Canadian High Arctic, and those routes are chosen for icebergs, Inuit communities and history. If bears are the priority, Svalbard or Churchill gives you far better odds.
What lens do I need?
In Churchill a 100–400mm zoom covers most situations because the bears come close. In Svalbard bring the longest lens you can handhold steadily, ideally reaching 500 or 600mm, and good binoculars for everyone; many sightings stay distant.