The polar bear is the world's largest carnivore, roaming the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas. Find out more about these magnificent animals including the best places to see them, such as Churchill, Canada, and when to go.
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Canada and Alaska
Use our map to identify the best places to begin a polar bear spotting trip from.
Barrow is the only place in Alaska where you are likely to see polar bears from.
This small settlement is home to the Inupiat people and is normally reached by light aircraft from Fairbanks, about 500 miles away.
Best time to go: June to August.
Akpatok Island is an uninhabited island about 70 km from the mainland of northern Quebec. It is home to numerous birdlife including Arctic terns, puffins, razorbills and thick-billed murres. It is also a favourite summer hang-out for polar bears. While there is plenty of ice the bears stay out at sea and feast on seals. When the ice melts they come ashore; the males continue hunting around the seashore while the females den.
Cambridge Bay was called Ikaluktuutiak by the indigenous Inuit, which translates into "good fishing place". Archaeological sites were subsequently found with evidence of fishing. It is similar to Nain in population size.
Churchill, next to Hudson Bay in Canada's Manitoba region is probably the best known place in the world for seeing polar bears. During the winter, when the bay freezes over, the bears live some 40 to 150 miles out on the ice, hunting seal along the leads. When the spring comes, large pieces of ice called “floes” are blown south and ground the bears on the bay’s southern shore. The bears ride the floating ice onto the beach, and by July, have dispersed inland along the coast.
By mid-October, some 600 to 1,000 bears are massed along a 100-mile-long stretch of coast between the Nelson and Churchill rivers, forming the largest concentration of polar bears in the world. Many of the bears, mostly males, cluster on headlands and capes, especially Cape Churchill. When the first hard freeze occurs, the bears disperse out once again over the frozen bay in search of seals
The unique Tundra Buggy, with its high ground clearance, is used as an ideal platform to view the bears close-up.
Nain is the northernmost community in Canada's Newfoundland and Labrador region. Its population of around 1,400 people are mainly Inuit. Nain is the starting point for several cruises which travel into the High Arctic, and from where you are likely to see polar bears.
Resolute, or Resolute Bay as it's sometimes know, is a tiny Inuit community on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut. Its northerly location meant it became the final resting place of several of the crew from the ill-fated Franklin’s expedition of 1845. These days it is an ideal location for expeditions to the North Pole, and of course, for polar bear spotting.
Best time to go: May to August.
Spitsbergen is the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The sovereign territory of Norway, it is one of the closer places to mainland Europe where you can go to see polar bears, although sightings are not as numerous as they would be if you visit say, Churchill in Canada.
The island and its surrounding waters are also inhabited by a range of other wildlife, including walrus, seals, whales, reindeer, Arctic fox as well as numerous seabird colonies.