High on my pinniped wishlist was the Arctic toothwalker: the walrus (Odobenus rosmarus).

We saw our first walrus on the pack ice on our third day. It was a large male resting on its cool floating bed. The walrus did not seem alarmed by a large ship in its vicinity. He looked up, surveyed the ship, and then returned to its nap. Over the next few hours we saw four more walruses including a female with calf (they were more skittish and disappeared under water).

This was not to be our best walrus sightings of the voyage, our best experience was saved for our last full day on the western side of Spitsbergen. This was in the fjord Bellsund.

A guide spotted about 20 walruses hauled out on a sandspit so our afternoon landing plans changed as our focus was getting great looks at a mass of walruses (known as a herd).

The Zodiacs dropped us upwind and was quietly walked towards the end of the sandspit and the resting walruses.

Once we were about 50 yards from the herd, the guides had us form in a line so all could have an unobstructed view of this iconic Arctic marine mammal.

We slowly crept closer and the walrus herd was not perturbed in the slightest. This is a beast that the ice bear has a hard time preying upon, so a pack of camera wielding nature lovers was nothing!

This was a great time for a sketch. So I took out my small Hahnemühle sketchbook and started sketching walrus.

On our morning shore visit our Zodiacs headed to the hunter cabin and beluga carnage at Bamsubu.

I was on the first Zodiac ashore and I planned to sketch the hunting cabin amid the bones. The rustic cabin, built by Arctic necessity rather than true craftsmanship, stood on a rise and I sketched it in with my brush pen.

I was originally told that I would have little time to sketch during landings because the group had to keep moving and we didn’t have prolonged stops. But it was the photographers that slowed up the groups not a lone Corvidsketcher with sketchbook and pen.

Within ten minutes I had finished two sketches, one of the cabin and the other a beluga whale skull.

We arranged ourselves into three different hiking groups, I chose the medium hike led by our expedition leader Phillipp.

We headed up the hill to look at a stone cairn, once a lookout for belugas. Phillipp announced to the group that he had something to show us and we headed inland, away from the cabin and carnage. Here we came upon some other carnage. This time younger bones and hair. White hair. It could he from the Svalbard reindeer but the claw spoke of the ice bear.

Well I had finally seen a polar bear. . . Ish. The bears live by feast and famine with a high mortality rate for the young ones and the rising temperatures at the poles are diminishing their hunting platforms, sea ice, for their favorite meal, the bearded seal.

After reflecting on the former bear we headed uphill to a rocky outcrop with a commanding view of the fjord. Once at the top, Phillipp had a challenge for us: find a spot, sit quietly for five minutes, and take in the sounds of the Arctic. In outdoor ed terms this is called a silent sit.

I reinterpreted it as a silent sketch. Challenge accepted.