Photo Essay: The Many Moods, Tones, and Colors of the High Arctic

Blacks, Yellows, and Red Rock

The Arctic isn’t just frozen sea; it stretches across eight countries, each with its own dramatic landscapes. While winter cloaks the region in white, summer reveals volcanic basalt rock in rich reds and yellows, colored by iron deposits.

Moss blankets the land in vivid green, bursting life into what otherwise seems a monochrome world. Even remote Arctic outposts like Jan Mayen, a volcanic island belonging to Norway, add to the region’s geological and ecological richness with its dramatic, otherworldly terrain.

Wildlife Wherever You Look

Arctic animals show a palette adapted to their tough environment and seasonal rhythms. Puffins sport striking black-and-white feathers year-round, but during breeding season, their bills flash bright orange, yellow, and black, with soft grayish-white faces. Outside that time period, their colors soften, bills shrink, and faces darken.

Eider ducks, native to the cold northern regions and renowned for its incredibly warm down, flaunt bold black-and-white plumage with pistachio-green necks resembling a tennis ball, while females blend into nests with warm brown barred feathers. And Arctic terns, masters of graceful flight and epic migrations, combine pale gray bodies with black caps and vivid red bills and legs.

Even classic icons like polar bears shift from creamy white to soft browns as their thick coats trap and reflect light, blending with their surroundings, while walruses show warm pinkish-brown tones under whiskers.

Seals are silvery grays to mottled browns which acts as a perfect camouflage on icy shores. Humpback whales add to this rich color play with their striking black-and-white patterns, and barnacle encrusted bodies that tell tales of long journeys through the frigid sea.

Tundra Flora

Unlike Antarctica’s stark white, the High Arctic bursts with color each summer. In places like Svalbard and Greenland, hardy wildflowers defy freezing soils, soggy ground, and brief growing seasons by blooming quickly in compact forms. Moss Campion is a cushion-like alpine plant with pink to purple flowers.

Its low, dome-shaped form helps conserve heat and harsh winds. At 25 cm tall, the Svalbard Poppy thrives in rocky soil, holding the record as the highest-altitude blooming plant in the archipelago.

Human Settlements

Arctic towns in places like Svalbard brighten the landscape with vibrant houses painted in reds, blues, yellows, and greens. These bursts of color help homes stay visible during long, dark winters with heavy snow in a land where natural boundaries blur and trees are scarce.