SVALBARD 78°19’09.5”N 18°51’35.6”E
the ever - wandering one , the one who walks on ice, the great white one, the King of the Arctic... the polar bear has many names. The greatest predator on earth is powerful and beautiful yet at the same time so vulnerable. Polar bears are wanderers. They are endlessly on the move, in a constant search for food and life. Some bears are more local, but others cover great distances and follow the edge of the arctic pack ice as it moves, grows, and shrinks through the seasons. The polar bear is often regarded as a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea. However, it is the only living marine mammal that also lives on land. Its preferred habitat is the sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the arctic archipelagos. These areas, known as the “Arctic Ring of Life,” are where the North Pole pack ice meets the open water and the regions surrounding the northernmost land areas on our planet. Seas full of life and with higher levels of biological productivity than the deeper waters closer to the North Pole. every face tells a story , and Helen’s tells a magical story. It is the beginning of April, and I am driving on a snowmobile through the arctic landscape. The valleys feel endless, and time disappears. After safely crossing the glacier, we came down to the east coast of Spitsbergen. We stopped where the land met the frozen ocean and looked out over the panorama of glaciers and sea ice. We quickly saw deep paw prints in the snow, next to a little iceberg. My heart started to race, and then I realized where I was. All of a sudden, everything was so real. I looked up, and my eyes glided uncontrollably over the sea ice, searching for a bear. I had never seen a polar bear in my life; the proof of her presence, close to us, just took my breath away. “There it is”, I hear Fredrik say, pointing straight ahead far out on the sea ice. A little dot, moving. Moving towards us, changing into a silhouette and then into a bear. She walked zigzag towards us, something a polar bear often does when they approach something or someone to investigate – or eat. Before I knew it, she was just a hundred meters away from us. She arrived at this beautiful blue iceberg and climbed up to the top like she was posing for us. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My chest was about to explode. I could not feel my finger pressing on the camera shutter button any longer. I was afraid, but even more, filled with respect and love for this animal. She jumped down and played in the snow right in front of us. She sat up and started sniffing the air, sniffing us. She was curious, she probably never saw or had smelled a human being. But she was as cool as ice. Helen welcomed me to the Arctic, to my new life and work. She welcomed me with an adrenaline shock but, most of all, with fascination and love for her and her world of ice. When she looked at me for the first time, I stopped breathing.
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MOTHER VOLUME ONE
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