"They shoot polar bears don't they?"
The horrifying account of the British teenager who was maulded to death in Svalbard last week made me reflect upon my own experience at a neighbouring glacier on the Arctic island just a few years ago.
I only really understood that the bear threat was serious when I felt the weight of the gun in my hand. I was one of a small group of would-be adventurers who had disembarked from the cruise ship MS Nordstjernen for a four-day sea-kayaking holiday in the Arctic. We were going to camp and paddle around a section of the uninhabited north west of Spitsbergen island in the Svalbard archipelago. Our German guide, Ralph had just handed me the Mauser rifle we would have to use if a polar bear attacked him first. The gun was heavy, freezing cold and very sobering. Up until this point polar bears had ranked somewhere on my cute-scale between penguins and dolphins. Of course I had read the guidebooks and listened to a few stories on the boat but ingrained anthropomorphism goes deep. As I began to count the bullets the reality sank in deeper. The truth was that polar bears are ferocious wild animals and can become desperate for food in the ice-free summer months. It was mid June and we were now about to sleep under canvas in their hunting ground.
Ralph had shown us around our base camp and had joked about the rudimentary facilities as we waved goodbye to the comforts of the ship. Then the joviality ceased as he carefully took us through the thorough safety briefing. He stressed that we were in no danger as long as we followed the correct procedures and familarised ourselves with all the emergency equipment. This included how to operate the radio to contact the rescue helicopter. Apparently we were so remote that help could take up one and half hours to arrive. The devices and explosives to scare off predators provided more immediate comfort and the camp was full of them. There was a fat flare pistol by the door of the kitchen-tent, two large bore rifles (.308 calibre) - one of which Ralph always carried with him, a rocket launcher at the open air toilet and a three foot high tripwire surrounding our sleeping quarters.
I was on my own in a two-man tent for our first night of camping in the Arctic wilderness and as I wriggled into my sleeping bag the nagging worries began. Our tents were pitched on a sandy moraine shore opposite the massive Blomstrand Glacier – a monster of moving ice that lets out groans and cracks as it calves icebergs into the sea. The noise from the glacier and the light of the midnight sun made it difficult to sleep. Soon I was fixated on the three thousand or so polar bears that roam wild in Spitsbergen and I had convinced myself that I could hear a large male 1500 pounder heading my way. Lying cocooned on the ground in my shiny black sleeping bag I looked very much like a marooned plump seal. I decided to vacate to the main communal tent where there would be the potential of a hot cup of tea with a fellow camper.
In true Arctic fashion the weather had changed in the evening from glorious midsummer sunshine to a winter gale severe enough to demolish our small store tent and blow our kayaks twenty metres from the camp. We had wanted an experience in the wild and we were getting one. I thought of the early polar explorers as I braced myself for the walk. I found the distance to our main tent difficult going never mind a trek North Pole.
As I stepped across the threshold I was grabbed by a fellow camper who was in a full blown fit of panic. Marie, a young French geomorphologist who had been the main joker of our team in the daytime was now convinced we were all doomed. She pulled me outside into the storm to show me her evidence - a one metre square chunk of whale bubbler that had mysteriously washed ashore right next to our camp. “All the bears in the area will smell this and head our way “ she exclaimed.
I could not fault her logic, but I tried to calm her and decided it was time to fetch Ralph and his rifle. So it was that the three of us spent the night on an enforced polar bear watch. We drank tea, and wine and told stories until the storm abated and our clocks rather than the light told us it was morning.
Luckily we didn’t encounter any polar bears on the rest of our trip but later safely back on the cruise ship I did manage to see my first ursus maritumus in the wild. Our on board guide pointed out a whole family of four white bears foraging for eider eggs on an island in the Woodfjorden. As I watched through my binoculars I reflected that it was strange to finally see these celebrated animals in their natural habitat. They weren’t doing tricks for a zookeeper, advertising glacier mints, or pulling a white witch’s sleigh. They were just going about their normal icy business completed undisturbed by the passing audience. For many reasons I was glad to see that our boat maintained a respectful distance. After my nights at the glacier I had developed a new respect for these wild and powerful creatures. We were the intruders in their native territory and I wondered how long they would survive the growing pressures of tourism, global warming and the rush for natural resources in Arctic.
For more adventures in Svalbard click here to read the full story.