A zoologist
assigned to the next bunk bed in the PCSP Government station in Resolute Bay
was taking apart his riffle. He spent several hours cleaning and oiling it.
Tomorrow he would make a camp for two months on Devon Island in a prime polar
bear area, to study them. He said that our shotguns where basically useless as
a safe defense. It was my first time in the area.
Polar bears
are the biggest carnivores of North America and have a scary reputation. It is
commonly believed that any encounter will result in a lethal attack but this is
incorrect. In Northern Canada, it is extremely rare to get killed or even
severely injured by a polar bear, perhaps once in every 10 years. This is less
than the risk of a flying accident. A real threat is loneliness during a year
round assignment resulting in alcoholism.
Polar bears
prefer to live in the areas with open
water and ice floats. This is were they
hunt for their main staple, seals. A frozen sea, like in the winter, or no ice
floats like in the Hudson Bay in the summer, prevents them from hunting as the
seals move to other areas and use small isolated rocky islands to rest on land.
Now they are hungry and unpredictable.
In the Canadian
High Arctic, a high concentration of polar bears lives off Devon Island, in
Baffin Bay, an areas that freezes up completely in the winter but opens up very
early in the summer.
The sea
around Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Island tends to be frozen until very late in
the summer, usually until mid July. Only the East coast of Ellesmere Island has
a large area of open water but the number of polar bears is still small.
Despite the
risk, you should worry more about the scary man-made mechanical and very lethal
monsters called helicopters and riffles. Still, camping and hiking in this
region for scientific studies is always clouded by a possible encounter making inexperienced visitors extremely
nervous. It is believed that when you meet a polar bear during the day you
simply grab your gun and shoot it but
what will happen if a polar bear comes into your camp at night while sleeping?
Despite the
low chance in encountering polar bears except in the well-known areas where
they concentrate, we are well-prepared.
It is
mandatory for every camp to have a riffle or 12-gauge shotgun (preferably).
Riffles are only recommended for experienced shooters as the stopping power at
close range is limited but the government is not keen on them as you may start
shooting too early, at long range, when there is still no threat. Shotguns, the
riot gun type with a short barrel as used by the American police force with a
slug bullet which has a massive lead head of a few cubic centimeters, are ideal
to stop big animals at close range but at more than 20 m, they are highly
inaccurate. When doing target practice on cardboard a typical bullet hole was
3-4 cm across which has a devastating effect.
Banging
flares called “bear scares” were also issued.
When shot they will explode a second time at some 50 m with a high end
fire-cracker noise. The idea was to shoot the flare with a pencil directed at
the bear. I did not trust this as polar are not scared of anything except our
mechanical, really big and scary monsters like helicopters.
The most
effective protection was an alarm based on storing the meat supply in a big
sturdy aluminum box outside the camp in a snow bank. A polar bear has an
excellent sense of smell and would smell the meat at a distance of several kilometers.
He would go more or less straight for the box and tear it open within minutes
but the noise would alarm us.
Banging on
the cast iron frying pan was also suggested but this sounded like a made up
story, I could not find anyone who ever
tried it.
The best
protection are huskies used for pulling a slay. Even as less as two huskies are
no match and a bear will be easily chased off when ill-behaving. Explorers were
always surprised by the harmless encounters of polar bears and huskies during
slay trips. Normally, they look at each other, do a bit of sniffing and the
bear either hangs around or wanders off peacefully. A respectful encounter. Most wild animals are know to be
extremely cautious in such situations with equal matches and avoid each other,
a survival instinct, they already have enough trouble finding food..
The only
serious problem could be a young, roughly 2-3 year old polar beas, just
expelled by its mother, and unable to find food. Inexperienced they may drift
off outside their habitat to ice-covered sea straits without seals. This is
were most camps are made. Such a bear is at the brick of starvation and will go
for any food..
Below some
bear encounter I know of and a potential one that turned out to be just wolves.
The only
real incident I heard was at this camp near Alexander Fiord on Eastern
Ellesmere Island, the area looking towards Greenland with lots of open water
and ice floats.
One night
listening to the 7 PM radio traffic to all the camps and passing on our
bi-daily weather report, we heard a panic call from a camp at Alexander Fiord.
They had a bad situation. There were three
polar bears around camp and they were wondering what to do. The first
thing the base asked, “Where is your meat?” It was a save spot in a snow bank
outside the camp. The camp wanted a move ASAP but the base asked if they could
wait till tomorrow as the two plane were fully occupied and could come to their
location that night as they were in different regions. With some hesitation
they responded they would try and were asked to be stand-by on the radio all
night. The next morning they got an early move and were extremely relieved. The
bears did not destroy anything and where just hanging around the camp.
In 1982, we made a camp near Buchanan Lake [1, area on the sea in the far
distance], a place known for Arctic Char fish, a kind of salmon
that lives in lakes near the sea but feeds in the sea. The valley in front of
the mountain range was close to the sea and the main north-south pathway for
migrating animals. Every day we saw caribous, musk-ox and occasionally even
wolves passing by.
Fishing for Arctic Char in the lake did not work. The fish use the
meandering stream to reach the sea for feeding. One unlucky fish resting in a shallow spot we caught by a sledge
hammer approach, using a geological hammer. The large 5 kg fish was food for
several days.
One night we heard animals outside the tent and were worried it could be
a polar bear as we were camped near the sea. Luckily there were just two wolves
trying to steal our garbage bag. Still, this would have been a problem as every
campsite is inspected after the seasons for trash. We were not allowed to leave
any signs of camping in this pristine natural area. Northern Canada is treated
as a highly protected national park and the area is very sensitive to human
influence.
Firing a shotgun did not work. The wolves just looked at us for a brief
moment and kept on dragging the tasty garbage bag along. The only other option
I had was firing an emergency flare and
now they were gone in a split second. This presumably resembles lightning and
all animals are scared of this. Only once I saw a thunderstorm in this area so
they are familiar with it. All animals except polar bears are scared of
emergency flares, I have been told. For polar bears we carry the bangers,
resembling a flare but when shot making a thundering noise at a distance of 100
m. I never had to try this out and would never rely on an effective working. When
you have polar bears in a camp there is only one option, move camp ASAP.
At least
once or twice during the winter when the temperature plummets to –50 or –60
Celsius with fierce polar winds, a polar bear would come up to the station and
the ten persons leaving where would notice it.
They kept
some 4 huskies outside and these would chase of the bear when it stays too
long. This happened a few times, the bear running for its life as the huskies
were pretty wild.
A
government geologist was just dropped
off by helicopter in the morning and walking down a river bed studying the
rocks. When the helicopter left it spotted a bear going up river in the same
river bed. They would have meet each other soon.
The pilot
flew to the bear and chased it back to the sea.
![[1, area on the sea in the far distance]](arcticra.jpg){kind=link}