It is an absolutely indescribable feeling to look straight down the barrel of a loaded polar bear. Standing on the ice, face to face with the largest land-based predator on earth is an experience I will remember for as long as I live.

We spotted this big male when he was about a mile or so away across the ice and tried to position ourselves to be unobtrusive while we observed. But, with a nose capable of smelling prey 20 miles away and 3 feet under snow, he picked up on us pretty quickly and came over to see what all the fuss was about. An unforgettable few minutes of tense inspection by both parties and he was on his way, as silently as he approached.

Polar bears are astonishingly quiet and graceful animals considering their size, and I can’t help but think of them as phantoms of the arctic. When we're up there, we are in THEIR world.