The walrus’s Latin name, *Odobenus rosmarus,* comes from the Greek for “tooth walker,” since the animals often use their tusks to pull themselves up onto the ice.

Research suggests that most polar bears, like most humans, are right-handed.

“At some point, we lost sight of the fact that to harm nature is to harm ourselves,” write Fredrik Granath and Melissa Schäfer. Schäfer is pictured here.

The polar bear’s fur looks white, but it’s actually transparent. The air spaces inside the hair scatter light of all colors.

The polar bear is a master at napping. It can do it anytime, anywhere.

“The greatest threat to future life on earth is the belief that someone else will save it,” write Granath and Schäfer. Granath is pictured here.

Polar bears can go weeks without eating, living only off their own fat reserves.

80 Degrees North

A dazzling Arctic archipelago home to walruses and polar bears is at the mercy of our warming planet

In Svalbard, Norway, 700 miles south of the North Pole, 60 percent of the land is covered by glaciers, polar night reigns from November to February, and the polar bear is king. A new book by Fredrik Granath and Melissa Schäfer sheds light on this remote place, where an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 polar bears hunt ringed seals and where climate change is at its most evident. “Anyone who doubts the power of human beings to change our planet’s climate should take a look at the home of the polar bear.... It has literally begun to melt away,” write the authors in the prologue of Polar Tales, familiar words made poignant by the arresting photographs of the Arctic magic—bears, walruses, seals, ice—at risk. —Julia Vitale