01 Sep 2013

Reindeer Rendezvous

We left Wrangel Island behind a couple days ago, but not before we had an amazing encounter with a group of Musk Oxen.  Under the guidance of the Ranger staff we quietly approached the group, the wind was in our face, they saw us and moved back a short distance but must have decided we posed no threat because they started feeding and allowed us to approach within about 50 metres.  There was one huge bull, a number of cows, two of them with young and some subadults.  It was a great finale to an amazing visit.

Back on the mainland .. we were to have another encounter that participants in this expedition will talk about forever, it will go down in Heritage Expeditions' history as one of our highlights .. and over the years, believe me, we have had many, but this one was very special. 

We were able to rendezvous with a delightful group of nomadic Chukchi reindeer herders.  You could not have written the script for this encounter, the tundra setting above a remote isolated beach on the Chukotka coastline was perfect. The lighting from the late afternoon autumn sun was surreal. We had waited for a couple hours with the family (the women and children) picking berries while the men herded the animals towards us. We had been assured they were 'almost close' on several occasions, when they appeared, 2,500 animals advancing towards us, a sea of antlers, it was incredible.. There is no other way to describe it. The herd stopped a few metres away from us, started grazing then most lay down. It was dark when we finally farewelled the family, we came back to the ship, a 3 course meal and comfortable cabins awaited us.  The family no doubt crawled into their reindeer sleeping bags and lay down under the stars for another night in tundra.  I envy them.