Our cruise along Greenland’s still-frozen east coast would have been a memorable adventure on its own. But it turned into an exceptional one with the rare and amazing opportunity to spend a day at a whale carcass, beached on the ice, that had attracted an astonishing 68 polar bears. The cruise was lightly booked, with only 77 guests, and the bear counters estimated that they would have missed at least a dozen during their official tally, leading the captain to wryly announce that we currently have more polar bears than guests.

When we first arrived in the area, it appeared that some terrible calamity had occurred. Dozens of polar bears were lying motionless, scattered across the ice. But they were just sleeping. After gorging themselves at the carcass, they would wander off somewhere and doze for a few hours, then repeat the process. The picture above (click image for a larger view) captures only a portion of the scene, with red circles around each visible bear, and the carcass at far right.

The ship stayed with the carcass for a full day, moored into the ice, as we all took hundreds of photographs and simply enjoyed watching the bears as they ate, interacted with each other and moved about along the ice floes. One even wandered over and tried to take a bite out of the ship.

The absolute best part of the day, however, was the cubs. Seeing a mother with a cub or two is rare and exciting, but witnessing three cubs is almost unheard of. We particularly enjoyed watching as mom jumped into the water while the little ones watching intently before jumping in themselves.