As the dark winter ends in the Canadian Arctic and sea ice melts, a surprising variety of wildlife begins to move. Coastlines and rivers have been ice-bound for months, but as channels and gaps appear, polar bears, Arctic foxes, wolves and wolverines prepare to move north, following the vast herds of migrating caribou.
They’re driven and enabled by some startling natural phenomena, which transform this frozen landscape into an explosion of life that’s as novel as it is unexpected. Polynyas are open areas of ocean – freed from ice by warm currents or winds. The extra light they receive produces plankton blooms, and a cascade of food chain activity follows.
These polynyas provide a foothold for larger life to flourish. A polar bear mother and her two cubs scavenge the frozen coastline. Swans stop off on open stretches of the Yukon River, mating and preparing to fly north as soon as the weather warms. Further offshore, gaps in the frozen ocean become hotspots of life. Bird species including murre and kittiwakes, and marine giants such as narwhals and orcas, follow the plankton and Arctic cod into the polynyas.
As the tundra blooms, vast herds of caribou migrate from the south, giving birth as wolves, grizzly bears and wolverines follow. As summer begins to cool, ice slowly returns. The polar bear mum can venture onto the pack ice once again to hunt seals, and the narwhals remain in the last bits of open ocean.