The Bears Are Here!

Oh, so close.  Yes, I thought I was going to finally get to see a live polar bear!  I was in the community of Arviat which is the most southernly community in the Kivalliq region and situated directly on the shores of the Hudson Bay.  There were daily reportings of the polar beasts on the local radio.  The radio serves as the main means of alerting people to the imminent danger posed by these large carnivores. 

At midnight, a call went out that there was a massive male bear at the town dump.  When standing on his back legs, he was estimated to be 14 feet tall! Even the locals said this was huge.  The whole town headed out to the dump to see this massive creature.  Sure enough, he was there.  Safely in their trucks, many locals were able to get within 50 feet of the giant beast.  The bear seemed disinterested in the humans, more content on scrummaging for food.

The next morning, we heard the story.  "Ahh", I said.  "Call me if that happens again. Anytime of the day or night. I'll go!"  Sure enough, the next morning the local radio was announcing there was another bear in town, this time at one of the playgrounds on the edge of town. My host quickly found me and off we went!  I was going to see my first live polar bear! 

We drove around, trying to locate the bear.  My host said the bear must be gone because the dogs were not barking. Usually, when there is a bear close by, they start barking frantically.  The dogs are often a better forewarning than the conservation officers, who drive around the community constantly looking for bears.  In Arviat, because they have such a problem with bears coming into town, they have hired a person who drives around all night, armed and looking for the bears.  He's only employed during the months the bears are a problem, which is the time before the sea ice is solid. 

Nunavut has more polar bears than any other jurisdiction in the world.  Recent estimates put the bear population at about 17,000, many of which are in the Hudson Bay region. When the bears venture into town, they are looking for food.  One of the easiest places to find food is where people have piled whale remnants and other food they use to feed their dogs.  For a desperate and hungry bear, coming inland for food is one solution, but it can have deadly consequences.

My host suggested we take a drive down to the dump because the bear might have made his way down there.  Other people must have thought we had sighted him, because as we drove to the dump, we had a massive convoy of trucks following us!  Even in a community where bears are so prevalent, people still drop everything they are doing to see one.  I asked a local why this was so, and she said it is because these magnificent creatures are so revered in the Inuit culture.

With my binoculars in hand, I was ready to see my first polar bear in its native habitat! My host suggested I stay in the truck.  My co-worker who was with me suggested we get out, but not venture too far.  I thought that sounded like a good plan.  "Be careful," our host said.  "I don't have bear poppers or a shotgun.  Stay within sight of the truck. Don't do anything stupid!"

With those words and my heart beating rapidly, we got out of the truck. To the left was a short rise that was blocking our view of the area beyond it. My co-worker suggested we climb that rise, so we'd have a better view of the whole area.  That sounded like a great idea, as long as the bear wasn't on the other side of the rise!  Our host was shaking her head.  "Be careful," she repeated.  I wonder if what she really wanted to say to us "southerners"  was that this isn't a zoo, this is the wild, and people really can get hurt. 

As others started to get out of their vehicles we decided it was okay to climb the rise. If there was a polar bear there, surely with 10 or 15 choices for lunch, our odds of getting back to the vehicle were rising!  Just kidding, of course, but having more numbers did make it seem more safe.  I wonder if other unseasoned rookies had ever used that same reasoning and later regretted it...

As it turned out, the bear was no where in site.  What a disappointment.  I didn't want to give up.  He must be here somewhere. But once we heard a bear popper go off on the other side of town, we realized that our bear must be on the move again.  We'd have to wait until another report on the radio to find his location and start our journey again.

Unfortunately, no more sightings were made in the town or at the dump before I had to leave the next day.  However, the following week, we heard that a bear had made his way into town, and as often happens, with deadly consequences.  The owners of a house on "polar bear central" (that's what the locals refer to this part of their town as) was awakened by their sled dogs' frantic barking.  The owner rushed out to find the bear had killed one of his dogs.  He fired a warning shot at the bear but it would not back down, and was going after another dog.  The owner shot and killed the bear, a mother bear that likely had cubs.

Female polar bears have their cubs in November and December. As newborns, polar bear cubs are blind and only weigh about 600 grams, making them very vulnerable. They rely on touch, warmth and on their mother's milk to get the antibodies they need to fight disease and develop normally.

In the wild, the survival rate of polar bear cubs is not high. When faced with stressful factors such as not being able to hunt seal pups due to soft ice conditions, male polar bears will often eat their young. As experts say, it's an easy meal.


For this reason, the female bear will usually stay clear of their male counterparts, traveling inland for grasses, berries and remains from human hunting. This is what often brings female bears into communities like Arviat.  And while locals try not to kill female bears, in this situation there was no choice.  When female bears are killed, the communities' hunting quota for the following year is reduced by a 2 to 1 ration.

Nunavut has more polar bears than any other jurisdiction in the world.  Recent estimates put the bear population at about 17,000, many of which are in the Hudson Bay region. This current year the quota for this region is 21 bears.  Most of those bears will be harvested on the ice by local Inuit hunters, but some will be killed in the community.  Some will also be killed by sport hunters from the south who are willing to pay $20,000 to participate in a traditional polar bear hunt.

While polar bears usually live off their stored fat during ice-free times, the warming of the Arctic waters has extended the time bears are without seals, their main source of food.  With hundreds of bears unable to get to their traditional hunting grounds on the sea ice, the unintended killing of polar bears will continue in communities like Arviat.

In Churchill, Manitoba which is just south of Arviat, they have a "polar bear jail" where problem bears are kept until they can be safely returned to the ice flows. In Nunavut, this opportunity doesn't exist.  However, polar bear fences are being considered in high contact regions, and there is hope this will be a win-win solution for both the communities and the polar bears.

The picture below is taken from a local newspaper and shows a magnificent and healthy looking bear in our region. Hopefully, there are many more like him and, sooner or later, I'll get to snap his picture myself!

Until next time...

A Mighty Blow!

I thought I had seen the best that Mother Nature can do when it comes to blizzards.  Wrong!  This past week Baker Lake experienced one of the worst blizzards in decades!  The blizzard started on Monday and finally tapered off Thursday morning.  Environment Canada advised extreme caution, calling it a "prolonged blizzard event"!  The winds gusted to 120km an hour, the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane.  That, coupled with blowing snow, produced zero visibility conditions. As you'll see later in this blog, being out in zero visibility conditions in a blizzard is no fun.  In fact, it can be deadly.

The blizzard was forecast to start Monday morning. As staff arrived that morning, they were eagerly checking the windows, watching for signs that the blizzard was starting. People commented that everything outside appeared calm, maybe too calm.  It was an eerie silence that was soon to end. By 10am, the winds shifted to the northeast and snow started accumulating on the windows, one of the first signs of a pending blizzard. "It's coming," people were saying, still glued to the windows.  With unexpected speed that even the locals were shocked by, within 15 minutes we were in the middle of one of the largest and most potentially deadly blizzards of the decade.

Schools and offices in Baker Lake scrambled to get children and adults home.  Our office closed right away. I offered to drive four of my co-workers home. As we got into the vehicle, it became apparent that getting people home was going to be an adventure.  If you can imagine driving a vehicle with a white blanket thrown over your windshield, that is what it was like! We rolled down the windows, sticking our heads out, front and back, as we all tried to figure out where the roads were and which way was home!

We decided to drive down the main street.  In other blizzards I had experienced, you could at least see the telephone poles and could use those to help you navigate.  Not so with this massive storm.  We crawled along at 5km an hour.  I was constantly calling out, "What do you see on your side?", "Are we in the middle of the road?"  My four passengers would call back to me, "more to the left", "more to the right".  When nobody responded, I knew that none of us had a clue where we were!

And that became painfully obvious as we ended up axle deep in snow in a back alley.  No one could figure out how we could have gotten off the main road!  One of my co-workers jumped out and walking along the side of the vehicle, directed us back to the main street.  As we came closer to his house, he climbed through waist deep snow to get to his house, snow that had not been there 30 minutes earlier.  The blizzard was definitely in full force!

As I dropped off my final passengers, my co-workers insisted that one of them stay in the vehicle and drive home with me to make sure I would be safe. He would then walk to his place and we'd call each other to make sure we both got home safely.  Until you've been in a blizzard of this magnitude, this type of precaution might seem overdone.  It was not, and I believe it could have been deadly for people trapped out in that weather.  The only saving grace was a moderate windchill, only about -20C.  It could have been much worse.

I heard a story from a man who started walking home from his office that morning just as the storm was starting to unleash her fury.  He said it would normally take him five minutes to walk to his apartment.  It took his co-worker and himself 30 minutes to do so, and much of that time they were on their hands and knees.  The drifts, the blowing snow and the zero-visibility were too much for them to handle.  He said they tried to follow the telephone wires so they would know if they were still on the road, but even this was a challenge, as they were only able to catch occasional glimpses.  He said in retrospect, they were fools to try to walk home.  They should have stayed at work, even if it meant being stranded there for three days.  Quite a statement from a man who has lived in Nunavut for 10 years and has experienced many storms.

Thankfully, the blizzard died down early Thursday morning, however, Mother Nature had one more surprise in store for us.  The metal roof of our office building had been a victim of the storm!  The winds caught one corner of the roof, crumpling it over like the cover of a sardine can.  The windblown roof also took out the chimney, bending it over like a matchstick.  Needless to say, we weren't going to return to work on Thursday.  I've included a picture of our roof below.  Quite a sight.  If it wasn't so cold, I would have thought we were in the tropics, viewing the aftermath of a tropical storm!  Oh well, we'll chock this up to "the best blizzard yet" and a true test of the resiliency of the people, including me, who choose to make Canada's Arctic their home!  Until next time...

My Tribute

Welcome back to my Nanook of the North blog.  It's been quite a few months since I've blogged and you may be wondering if the wolves got me!  Well, the quick answer is no, I am still very much safe and sound in Nunavut!

I took a break from the blog after my dear father passed away this summer. I didn't intend to stop, but I guess I lost a bit of the joy of life with his sudden passing. As much as we all know that our parents are going to pass some time during our lives, one is never really prepared for the great loss we feel when it happens.

In some small way, my blogging about life in Canada's Arctic was a tribute to my father.  He wasn't able to travel, but always sought out opportunities to learn about places he wouldn't have the opportunity to go to himself.  He passed that love of life and adventure on to me, always encouraging me to venture out, meet new people and experience all that life had to offer. 

During the last time I spent with my dad, we poured over maps of the Arctic, looking at its topography and talking about the places I'd been and the many adventures I'd had.  He loved hearing about my adventures and I loved sharing them with him.  I remember him with a big smile on his face, telling me to be careful and not pet the polar bears.  My dad had a great sense of humour and this was his light-hearted tribute to my love of animals and my immense enthusiasm for seeing a live polar bear!

As I return to my Nanook blog, I do so with my dad close to my heart. I hope that the Arctic adventures I"ll share will continue to bring joy, not only to my family and friends who are following it, but also pay tribute to my father's passion for life and adventure.  And, when I finally get to see that polar bear, I'll keep his last words of wisdom close at hand!  

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”  Albert Einstein