Find the bear on the berg!In the Arctic, PB is not peanut butter. It’s a polar bear. Like crying fire in a movie theater when there is no fire, you don’t want to say the words polar bear in the Arctic—unless there is a bear. So as we floated from one fjord to the next on Spitsbergen, we would ask each other: “Seen anything interesting?” Anything could be a Beluga or a Walrus, or a Seal or a Minke Whale or any number of wondrous birds. But always, what we all wanted to see was a big white creature, a PB, a “furry friend.”

We had sailed into a beautiful fjord. Our three guides, Sarah Red, Sarah Blue and Therese went ashore to mark off a safe area. The scan and set-up was taking longer than usual. We stood on deck and strained toward the shore to know what was happening. The radios crackled. And then word came back: a bear was there, floating on a small iceberg. We could say those two words: Polar Bear.