Tailormade Arctic Wildlife Holidays
Safari Reimagined Cold:
The Canadian Arctic
Track polar bears, spot narwhals, and craft your own Arctic journey with exclusive experiences tailored just for you. Track polar bears, spot narwhals, and craft your own Arctic journey with exclusive experiences tailored just for you.
Track polar bears, spot narwhals, and craft your own Arctic journey with exclusive experiences tailored just for you. Track polar bears, spot narwhals, and craft your own Arctic journey with exclusive experiences tailored just for you.
The Arctic, Your Way
A safari doesn’t have to mean savannah. In the Canadian Arctic, gripping wildlife encounters, enormous landscapes and immersive cultural encounters await – all wrapped in an experience that’s just as exclusive, thrilling, and tailor-made as its African counterpart.
Whether it’s sleeping in an igloo under the Northern Lights, sharing stories with Inuit elders, seeing the first steps of a bear cub, or quietly kayaking beside a pod of belugas, this is a safari reimagined – cold, captivating, far from conventional, and entirely your own.
What’s more, different seasons and locations in the Arctic offer diverse possibilities of things to encounter and ways to see them. Read on to discover the opportunities of different times of year, and also the ways that we can tailor the ‘when, where and how’ to your personal interests.
Start Planning Your Arctic Safari >
Whether it’s sleeping in an igloo under the Northern Lights, sharing stories with Inuit elders, seeing the first steps of a bear cub, or quietly kayaking beside a pod of belugas, this is a safari reimagined – cold, captivating, far from conventional, and entirely your own.
What’s more, different seasons and locations in the Arctic offer diverse possibilities of things to encounter and ways to see them. Read on to discover the opportunities of different times of year, and also the ways that we can tailor the ‘when, where and how’ to your personal interests.
Start Planning Your Arctic Safari >
From The Team
Julia Morgan
Head of Product
“We might associate a safari with Africa, but the elements of unforgettable wildlife encounters within remote and beautiful landscapes can be applied to other places too, especially the high latitudes. Polar bears, narwhals, Inuit culture and the Northern Lights are just the start of what the Canadian Arctic offers.”
Arctic Wildlife Experiences by Season
Summer: Narwhals & the Floe Edge
Best time to go: May & June
Ideal length: 8 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
Ideal length: 8 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
- Encounter the Arctic’s legendary yet real icon: the improbable narwhal.
- Have close-up experiences with diverse creatures, including seals, polar bears and whales.
- Head out over the waters in a sea kayak and plunge in for a snorkel.
- Enjoy extraordinary vistas of ice and ocean as you try your hand at building an igloo.
It’s at the edges that life is most interesting, because that’s where things meet and mix, perhaps sometimes even collide. One of those places is the Floe Edge, the Arctic’s dynamic juxtaposition of ice and open water, where the two environments flourish most profusely with life. This is the polar ecosystem at is most biodiverse, a place for a dramatically different and extraordinary safari experience.
Just yards away, you may see the surfacing of an almost mythical beast: the astonishing narwhal with its unicorn tusk that defies belief. Migratory birds fill the air, seals bask, belugas and bowhead whales swim peacefully by, tusked walruses snort and fight, and mighty polar bears hunt. Trek 10 miles inland and there will be complete silent solitude, but come to the edge of the ice and you’ll discover where the polar action unfolds.
Just yards away, you may see the surfacing of an almost mythical beast: the astonishing narwhal with its unicorn tusk that defies belief. Migratory birds fill the air, seals bask, belugas and bowhead whales swim peacefully by, tusked walruses snort and fight, and mighty polar bears hunt. Trek 10 miles inland and there will be complete silent solitude, but come to the edge of the ice and you’ll discover where the polar action unfolds.
Extraordinary experiences happen in places that are far beyond the norm, as you discover when you journey to a camp nestled beneath the serac icebergs and towering cliffs near the floe edge. This is not a place for all seasons, so accommodation is temporary, though all the more adventurous because of it. Tents and yurts they may be, but the dwellings are warm, as luxurious as you can be in such an environment, and clustered around a mess tent where the cuisine is remarkable.
Diversity is not just the characteristic of the wildlife here; it’s also a word that best describes the ways that you can experience this environment. You’ll kayak through still waters while being circled by curious seals, cross the snowy wastes on a fat bike, snowmobile or qamutiik sled, even plunge into the waters to swim with snorkel and fins. Above, you can see it all by helicopter or hot air balloon. Below, you can sit quietly with an Inuit elder guide and have secrets revealed.
Start planning your Floe Edge Safari >
Diversity is not just the characteristic of the wildlife here; it’s also a word that best describes the ways that you can experience this environment. You’ll kayak through still waters while being circled by curious seals, cross the snowy wastes on a fat bike, snowmobile or qamutiik sled, even plunge into the waters to swim with snorkel and fins. Above, you can see it all by helicopter or hot air balloon. Below, you can sit quietly with an Inuit elder guide and have secrets revealed.
Start planning your Floe Edge Safari >
Autumn: The Great Polar Bear Migration
Best time to go: October & November
Ideal length: 8 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
Ideal length: 8 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
- Stay in a private cabin positioned directly on the migration route — see polar bears from your window.
- Join Inuit guides on foot or by tundra vehicle for close, respectful encounters.
- Look for Arctic foxes, snowy owls, and migrating caribou in the golden autumn light.
- Photograph bears against the backdrop of early-season ice and snow.
There are creatures of habit, and then there are extraordinary creatures with phenomenal habits. Each year, polar bears follow the seasonal formation and melting of sea ice, migrating northwards in the autumn to hunt for seals. The epic trek is dictated by the forces of geography, and the route to the shores of Hudson Bay is known as ‘Polar Bear Alley’: a congregation of bears that peaks before the Gellani River freezes and they can cross to head to their winter territories.
To get here involves a journey on which the scale of the Canadian Arctic unfolds. From above, evidence of animal life is far more likely to be huge herds of caribou than human habitation in this immense tundra wilderness. A private charter flight from Churchill takes almost an hour before you touch down in just a small corner of it.
What awaits you is remote, intrepid, but undeniably comfortable. There are four cabins here, with space for just eight guests to enjoy warmth, good showers, exceptional food in the separate dining cabin, but – most importantly – encounters with polar bears.
To get here involves a journey on which the scale of the Canadian Arctic unfolds. From above, evidence of animal life is far more likely to be huge herds of caribou than human habitation in this immense tundra wilderness. A private charter flight from Churchill takes almost an hour before you touch down in just a small corner of it.
What awaits you is remote, intrepid, but undeniably comfortable. There are four cabins here, with space for just eight guests to enjoy warmth, good showers, exceptional food in the separate dining cabin, but – most importantly – encounters with polar bears.
At this time of year, searching for bears is almost unnecessary, for they will find you. A discrete electric fence may keep them away from the cabins, but they’ll be close enough for amazing photos, assuming you can keep your hands steady enough.
Tempting as it may be to stay warm, adventures out with an Inuit guide are essential for the full experience. You’ll hear about the behaviour, ecology and folklore of the bears, and be regaled with tales from previous encounters.
And in true safari tradition, you’ll not only be thrilled with your main attraction but also discover the other animals too: Arctic hares and foxes, willow ptarmigans and snowy owls. As you head back to base in the golden autumn light, darkness will be descending, and this may be a night for the Northern Lights.
Start planning your Polar Bear Migration Safari >
Tempting as it may be to stay warm, adventures out with an Inuit guide are essential for the full experience. You’ll hear about the behaviour, ecology and folklore of the bears, and be regaled with tales from previous encounters.
And in true safari tradition, you’ll not only be thrilled with your main attraction but also discover the other animals too: Arctic hares and foxes, willow ptarmigans and snowy owls. As you head back to base in the golden autumn light, darkness will be descending, and this may be a night for the Northern Lights.
Start planning your Polar Bear Migration Safari >
Late Winter: Polar Bear Cubs Emerge
Best time to go: Late February to late March
Ideal length: 12 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
Ideal length: 12 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
- Be there waiting as polar bear cubs see their first glimpses of their new world.
- Capture extraordinary images of polar bear mothers interacting with their cubs.
- Witness other polar wildlife, including Arctic foxes and hares, caribou, wolves and ptarmigan.
- Enjoy the comforts of a lodge under a sky shimmering with the Northern Lights.
Mothers know best, and for polar bears this means digging a den into the depths of the snow in December. It’s down here, away from biting winds and predators, that her cubs will be born, blind and helpless at first, and a far cry from the powerful hunting machines they will become. She won’t eat for months, but her cubs will feast on her nutritious milk and grow to become ten times their birth weight in less than three months.
Then the day comes. It is time to emerge. The world of light, space and crunch underfoot is waiting. They will play in the sun and strengthen their limbs under the watchful gaze of their mother, an animal existing on the last of her fat reserves. For these few weeks, they stay, but they’ll then take their first journey as a group to the sea ice. It will be time to be taught how to hunt seals.
Then the day comes. It is time to emerge. The world of light, space and crunch underfoot is waiting. They will play in the sun and strengthen their limbs under the watchful gaze of their mother, an animal existing on the last of her fat reserves. For these few weeks, they stay, but they’ll then take their first journey as a group to the sea ice. It will be time to be taught how to hunt seals.
For some cubs, it isn’t only the elements of the outside world that await them when they take their first shaky steps from the den; it’s also you. Watching silently and respectfully from a distance, you’ll pose no threat to a mother who would defend her cubs with her life. She senses that you’re here to witness and share this phenomenal episode in the circle of life.
Your own den is Newborn Polar Bear Cub Lodge, accessed by train from Churchill to Chesnaye. Expert guides scout in advance so that drivers of heated, tracked vans will know where to head, and do so without disruption to this stage of nurturing. Along the way, there’ll be a safari amid polar hues, with caribou, ptarmigan, foxes and hares to spot. Days are still short, so exhilarating excursions conclude with long, chilly nights and the dance of the Northern Lights.
Start planning your Polar Bear Cub Safari >
Your own den is Newborn Polar Bear Cub Lodge, accessed by train from Churchill to Chesnaye. Expert guides scout in advance so that drivers of heated, tracked vans will know where to head, and do so without disruption to this stage of nurturing. Along the way, there’ll be a safari amid polar hues, with caribou, ptarmigan, foxes and hares to spot. Days are still short, so exhilarating excursions conclude with long, chilly nights and the dance of the Northern Lights.
Start planning your Polar Bear Cub Safari >
Spring: Polar Bears & Icebergs
Best time to go: March & April
Ideal length: 9 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
Ideal length: 9 days (longer if you want)
Highlights & Experiences:
- Stay in a remote tented safari camp pitched directly on solid ice.
- Witness and photograph polar bears on sea ice shelves and glistening blue icebergs.
- Be surrounded by a stunning elemental landscape of mountains and ice.
- Experience the Northern Lights in the extreme latitude of the high Arctic.
Journey into the vast Canadian Arctic territory of Nunavut, where Baffin Island awaits. It’s a mesmerising spectacle where towering icebergs float beneath precipitous slopes and snow-capped mountains. A place for those who embrace the wild with wonder, it’s here in the spring, that rock, sea, ice and bears combine in breathtaking synchronicity. The scenes are as astonishing as the remoteness is mind-blowing.
Encounters are close and exceptional. Polar bears scale icebergs and cliffs before your eyes, and there are scenes of mothers teaching cubs the craft of survival in this land of austere grandeur. Your memories would be hard to believe if it weren’t for the evidence of your photographs.
Encounters are close and exceptional. Polar bears scale icebergs and cliffs before your eyes, and there are scenes of mothers teaching cubs the craft of survival in this land of austere grandeur. Your memories would be hard to believe if it weren’t for the evidence of your photographs.
Your base is a tented safari camp with a difference, and that difference is its setting, which goes with a territory of elemental beauty. To reach here is a journey by plane from Ottawa to remote Qikiqtarjuaq, then an expedition in a qamutik traditional Inuit sled. The tents are cocoons of comfort, but below them there are metres of ice; a frigid cap on which you venture out in snowmobiles for daily expeditions into the pristine and dazzling beyond.
Days at this time of year are rapidly lengthening, but the twilight hours before the contracting nights are bewitching. The Northern Lights still play in the skies; the backdrop to ice cliffs, contorted and sculpted by the elements as only nature knows how. In a landscape that most believe is just white, you’ll stand in awe and utter silence as you discover the subtle play of every colour under the rainbow.
Start planning your Safari to Baffin Island >
Days at this time of year are rapidly lengthening, but the twilight hours before the contracting nights are bewitching. The Northern Lights still play in the skies; the backdrop to ice cliffs, contorted and sculpted by the elements as only nature knows how. In a landscape that most believe is just white, you’ll stand in awe and utter silence as you discover the subtle play of every colour under the rainbow.
Start planning your Safari to Baffin Island >
Exceptional Ways in Polar Settings
On a safari in the Arctic, it’s not only the wildlife that leaves you spellbound but also the moments in between: the stillness of the tundra, the warmth of expert local hosts whose lives are shaped by their environment, and the quiet thrill of discovering a place few have ventured.
It isn’t a race from one sight to the next; it unfolds at its own rhythm, often with silence so complete you can hear snowflakes settle on ice. There’ll be bursts of exhilaration too as nature in all its forms – animals, landscapes and the elements – combine in the wild heart of the north.
This is a curated safari journey reimagined in a pristine and extraordinary wilderness, though never a feat of endurance. With effortless access to remarkable experiences, every moment is expertly guided and seamlessly delivered so that your memories will be as vivid as the Northern Lights themselves.
It isn’t a race from one sight to the next; it unfolds at its own rhythm, often with silence so complete you can hear snowflakes settle on ice. There’ll be bursts of exhilaration too as nature in all its forms – animals, landscapes and the elements – combine in the wild heart of the north.
This is a curated safari journey reimagined in a pristine and extraordinary wilderness, though never a feat of endurance. With effortless access to remarkable experiences, every moment is expertly guided and seamlessly delivered so that your memories will be as vivid as the Northern Lights themselves.
Your Arctic Safari is Yours to Shape. It is a chance for far more than photographs of polar bears:
- Sleep in an igloo in the remotest, most silent of settings, beneath the shimmering Northern Lights.
- Sea-kayak through the silky-smooth waters around ice floes, spotting playful seals and hearing the breath of narwhals.
- Have the best table in the high latitudes while you enjoy fine dining on an iceberg.
- Be immersed in the deep blue stillness below the sea ice on a scuba dive with an expert guide
- See the majesty of the polar wilderness in still silence from a hot air balloon.
- Learn the traditions and wisdom of the Inuit when you connect deeply with the people who live in this beautiful but challenging environment.
- Enjoy multiple ways to reach destinations and wildlife encounters: snowmobiles, helicopters, aeroplanes, qamutiik sleds, fat-tyred bikes, small boats, kayaks and even just by foot!
Polar Places with Journeysmiths
When you come to us for a bespoke polar safari, you’ll deal with someone who understands both the possibilities that await, and the ways you want to experience them.
- We’ll arrange a handcrafted journey led by local Arctic experts of the terrain and ecology.
- We have access to exclusive camps in remote locations where the scenery and wildlife opportunities are stunning.
- Your journey will be seamless but exhilarating and diverse, and there will be close personal guiding and attention from start to finish.
- Our trips include ethically immersive experiences with a positive community impact.
- We can dovetail your polar safari into a wider trip with other iconic destinations.
"However you imagine your Arctic safari — whether that's serene, adventurous, or a bit of both — we’ll tailor every detail for you."
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the best time to see polar bears and narwhals in the Canadian Arctic?
Different seasons bring different possibilities. In autumn, you can find yourself in the heart of Polar Bear Alley, watching the bears make their way north as the sea ice begins to form. In late winter, it’s time to witness polar bear cubs take their first steps into the world. Spring brings opportunities to see the cubs and more mature bears roaming the icebergs and snowfields of Baffin Island. As spring turns to summer, it's the time to see narwhals from the floe edge, and thanks to the endless daylight driving the peak of ecosystem activity, with belugas, seals and walruses moving through the water and migratory birds filling the skies.
What level of fitness is needed for Arctic safari activities?
A polar safari can be as active — or as relaxed — as you’d like it to be. There’s a whole spectrum of experiences: some are ideal for those who love to be out exploring, while others are perfect if you prefer to stay warm and comfortable.
For the adventurous, options like snorkelling or scuba diving beneath the sea ice are available, always under the expert guidance of highly trained local specialists. If you’d rather take things at a gentler pace, you might glide across the snow by snowmobile, travel in heated, tracked vehicles, or simply relax in a cosy cabin with binoculars in hand, watching the Arctic wilderness unfold around you.
For the adventurous, options like snorkelling or scuba diving beneath the sea ice are available, always under the expert guidance of highly trained local specialists. If you’d rather take things at a gentler pace, you might glide across the snow by snowmobile, travel in heated, tracked vehicles, or simply relax in a cosy cabin with binoculars in hand, watching the Arctic wilderness unfold around you.
How exclusive are Arctic camps and logistics?
Our partners in the Canadian Arctic operate small, personal camps where every detail is considered. With only a handful of guests at a time, you’ll experience the wilderness in quiet, unhurried intimacy. Logistics are seamlessly handled, from accessing remote locations to ensuring wildlife encounters feel private and extraordinary.
If you’d like something even more personalised, we can weave in bespoke additions or design an entire Arctic journey from scratch, tailored entirely to your wishes.
If you’d like something even more personalised, we can weave in bespoke additions or design an entire Arctic journey from scratch, tailored entirely to your wishes.
Can cultural experiences with Inuit communities be included?
Absolutely. In our view, connecting with Inuit communities is an essential part of understanding the Arctic. You’ll have the chance to spend time with local people, hear stories passed down through generations, and gain insights into their deep connection with this landscape. It’s a rare and rewarding exchange – one that adds meaning and perspective to your journey.
How does Journeysmiths tailor each Arctic journey?
Your Arctic safari begins with a conversation. From the moment you reach out, you’ll have a dedicated Journeysmith who takes the time to understand your interests, hopes, abilities, and personal style of travel. Together, we’ll shape an itinerary that reflects exactly what you’re looking for.
Behind the scenes, we’ll manage every detail — from seamless travel connections to perfectly timed wildlife encounters. And if your Arctic safari forms part of a wider journey, we’ll ensure everything fits together beautifully, leaving you free simply to enjoy the experience.
Behind the scenes, we’ll manage every detail — from seamless travel connections to perfectly timed wildlife encounters. And if your Arctic safari forms part of a wider journey, we’ll ensure everything fits together beautifully, leaving you free simply to enjoy the experience.
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