Arctic fox in Nunavut, Canada (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

17 September 2026

We think nothing of birds flying from one continent to another but the idea of a mammal walking from Europe to North America boggles the mind. There is no dry land between the two continents, only ice that thins in autumn.

In 2018 polar researchers Eva Fuglei and Arnaud Tarroux tagged a young female arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) with a satellite transmitter to see where she would go when she dispersed from her natal home on Spitzbergen in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. They were in for a surprise. 76 days later she settled in Canada.

Daily movements of a young Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) female using sea ice as a bridge while dispersing from her natal area in Svalbard, Norway, to Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada.

When the fox left her parents’ territory on 1 March 2018, Arctic sea ice was soon to reach its maximum extent on 17 March. Nine days later, with ice hugging the Spitzbergen’s eastern shore, she walked off the island and began her journey.

From 26 March to 1 July she traveled 76 days, put 4415 km (2743 miles) on her feet, and averaged 46.3 km (28 miles) a day. At top speed on Greenland’s ice sheet she traveled 155 km (96 miles) in a day.

Finally on 1 July 2018 she stopped walking and settled down on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. Here’s an animation of her daily movements from Polar Research.

• Daily movements of a young Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) female using sea ice as a bridge while dispersing from her natal area in Svalbard, Norway, to Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. The track covers the period from 1 March to 1 July 2018, and is based on Argos satellite data. The inset in the top-right corner provides a closer, more detailed view on the movement.
  . Map: Arnaud Tarroux, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research
  . Movement data: Fuglei and Tarroux 2019 (Polar Research 38, 3512, doi: 10.33265/polar.v38.3512)
  . Sea ice data: https://seaice.uni-bremen.de, Spreen et al. 2008, J.Geophys.Res. 113
  . Topographic data: The GEBCO Grid 2019 (www.gebco.net)

Not only did the fox make a big journey but she was in for a change in diet. At Svalbard there are no lemmings so Arctic foxes eat marine food. At Ellesmere Island lemmings are a significant part of their diet.

And she probably looked different. She was a blue morph like the fox pictured below. So she would never turn all white like the fox pictured at top in Nunavut, Canada.

Blue morph arctic fox in winter (photo from Wikimedia)

Read more about her journey at Polar Research: Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice.

This article was inspired by this post by @amazingmaps on Instagram.