(L) Polar bear paw, all that was left of some scavenged animal. (R) Frozen dog that had been eviscerated, but from the shoulders forward, looked just like it was asleep.

One of our purposes in visiting Victoria Island was to see the bird life. In addition to the other lecturers we had during the trip, there was Mr. Frank Todd, former Curator of Birds at the Los Angeles Zoo and creator of the Penguin Encounter exhibit at San Diego's Sea World. A survey of the ivory gull population done by Frank revealed a colony of between 230 and 260 nesting pairs of the beautiful birds, making it the largest known in the world. There were also 25 pairs of kittiwakes and an uncountable number of Arctic terns. A polar bear that appeared to be sleeping on the ice not far from the shore was actually dead, although no one volunteered to poke it to make sure. Another polar bear, this one very much alive, prowled around the vicinity, but was apparently cautious of the large number of people. Nevertheless Sasha, Aleksey and Dima, our armed Russian guards kept a close watch on it.

Before leaving Victoria Island, the Yamal made a big circle through the ice around Kapitan Dranitsyn with the  passengers and crew of both ships waving like mad. After ten days of following in our wake, the Dranitsyn was bound for Spitsbergen (now called Svalbard) while we would be heading in the opposite direction toward the Russian island of Novaya Zemlya.

(L) We are in open water again and the Yamal's wake seems to stretch to the horizon behind us. (R) I spent most of my time on this top deck above the bridge where you could see in all directions.

(L) A flock of birds skims across a calm sea. (R) The skies during the crossing from Franz Josef Land to Novaya Zemlya were magnificent. (Below) Our first views of Novaya Zemlya, which means "New Land" in Russian. This beautiful glaciated island was the setting for some 195 atmospheric and 50 underground nuclear explosions. I have always associated Novaya Zemlya with Russian spy novels.

(Above left) It takes several trips of both helicopters to put us all ashore. We have landed at Inostranseva Bay, about a mile up a deep gorge surrounded by glacial streams curving down from the mountain tops. The Yamal is anchored alongside a genuine iceberg, something we have not seen much of on this trip. (Above right) Even on this inhospitable stony beach flowers grow, taking advantage of the long summer daylight and the relatively warm temperatures. (Below left) Two passengers from England set off to investigate the foot of one glacial stream. (Below right) The deeply-crevassed edge of a glacial stream.

The island of Novaya Zemlya, as explained to us by geologist Dr. Grosswald, is considered to be the northern extension of the Ural Mountains. It was known to hunters in Russia as early as the 1300's. The Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz explored this coastline, and was forced to spend the winter of 1597-1598 after his ship was crushed by the ice. During the cold war, the Russian military maintained tight control of the island due to its usage as a nuclear testing ground. Life is not prevalent here, but does exist as the above picture demonstrates. We also saw some grasses and lichens, and one of the naturalists found three tiny spiders. Each of us had an opportunity to fly in the small helicopter up and over the top of the glacier, and it was truly an awesome sight. Later in the day we departed and sailed down the western coast, staying at least 40km out to sea because of military restrictions, then the next morning Captain Smirnov took his ship into "The Bay Without A Name" near Cape Ivanova. A small dispirited group of wooden buildings and communication towers was the only evidence of human occupation, and that must have begun fairly recently because the original inhabitants of the island were all relocated to the mainland because of the nuclear testing. At the time, in 1994, whether we were told this explicitly or not, I believed that the nuclear testing program on Novaya Zemlya had ended. I have since learned that there were nuclear tests there in 1996 and 1997, and perhaps later. Our last stop on this amazing voyage was to the Chabarova prison camp on the Yugorskiy Peninsula of Siberia, part of the infamous Gulag.

(L) The big helicopter lifts off and flies away from Yamal into the mists, and we must trust the skill of our pilots to know how to find their way back. (R) The ground is soggy, hummocks everywhere, and a guard tower looms over the desolate scene.

(Above) I tried to imagine what it would be like to be imprisoned here, in many cases for life, by a cruel government, and cut off entirely from the world they had known. (Below) Yet even in this harsh environment, with the ghosts of tragedy and terror all around, there were masses of flowers, tiny pink, blue, white, purple and yellow blossoms in carpets covering the ground. There were Arctic forget-me-nots, moss campion, bistorts, cotton grass, and purple saxifrage, among other things. Regrettably for me, this was the year before I became obsessed with wildflowers, so I paid scant attention to them, except to wonder whether their color and beauty had brightened at least to some extent the lives of the unfortunates who were incarcerated and in many cases died here.