Polar bear populations are dwindling. But on Alaska’s north coast, visitors can still spot these magnificent predators away from crowds
The next morning, we enjoy the town’s rarest weather: brilliant sunshine with only hints of cirrus clouds appearing like brush strokes on the firmament. Now the bears take on the hues of dawn—pink, then golden—as they come to the shore, their mighty frames mirrored in the still waters of the High Arctic.
In the early days of working with the bears, he was asked to help Sir David Attenborough’s legendary cold-climate cameraman, Doug Allan, film them for the BBC. “It was fun—when we first started, we used to walk around here with them,” says the skipper while we’re at anchor just 50 feet or so from a pair of sleeping bears. I give him a hopeful look that asks: “Could we possibly do that today?” But a small landslide of his eyebrows tells me that, no, we absolutely cannot.
During my time in town, a local shoots a polar bear for allegedly trying to kill his hound. Bruce explains with righteous profanity that he and others in the community think this is an outrage. Nonetheless, it’s ruled justified self-defense and the man is only given a warning.
Before leaving, Bruce explains that schedules aren’t the only thing subject to change round these parts. When he first moved to the area, he counted 90 polar bears at the bone pile, but following a freak storm in 2005, numbers started declining dramatically. “The ice wasn’t very thick, we had 100 mile-an-hour winds for a week and, well, this ocean got pretty messed up,” he tells me on the final morning. “The next year, we counted 60 bears. Now I think we’re hovering around 40 or 50.
“We’ve had teachers arrive in August, go into a sort of culture shock and get on the next plane back south,” Dorothy says, smiling. “Lots don’t last until Christmas, but it really depends on how you react to the environment.”
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