And yet more:

This is a walrus. It probably looks just like a large blob with a smaller blob on the end of it, but that's pretty much what a walrus looks like. Its head is on the right, and it is using its tusks to prop itself up. This is pretty disgusting, when you consider that the brown stuff on the ice is walrus excrement. The scientists on board told me that walruses have a good sense of smell. I told them I found that hard to believe. Unless, of course, all the grunting that walruses do is in fact them saying, "Hey, wait a minute. Who just ... ? Oh man, was that me again??? That's really disgusting."

And finally, the piece de resistance:

We ended up seeing so many polar bears that you'd think we'd have grown bored, but every time one appeared, pretty much everyone rushed up on deck. They are pretty amazing. Most of them stopped and looked at us for a while and just watched us go past. One of them came so close to the ship that it actually was sniffing the hull to check us out. The only thing better than being that close to a polar bear was the knowledge that a thick, ice-reinforced hull was between it and us.

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