Polar Bears in Churchill

Polar Bear at the mouth of the Seal River. North of Churchill - 2011 © Shane Tyler Adams

All of the sudden the two dogs are going wild. Movement catches your eye, far away from the central specific vision that we use to read, examine detail, or work with small delicate things. Something out in the periphery, detected by the visual ranging system that we've used since the beginning of human survival: the distant early warning system central to the hunt, identifying prey, or in this case, perhaps a threat - a predator ready and able to change the dynamic a full 180 degrees. And then there he is. Relaxed in the flat grey water of the Arctic Ocean, a hunter-killer submarine-sort-of with nearly three-quarters of a ton of displacement - muscle, sinew, fat and fur, driven by what strikes me as a very keen intelligence. The world stops as one marvels at his grace in the water and the simple amazing-ness of it all. And then -wham - he's at the deck, looking in. I saw him get out of the water. I saw him shake his fur, spray water in all directions. I saw him take a few steps, but I didn't see him cross the distance to the observation area. Nor did I take my eyes off of him. Not for a second. 

I've got a new gallery up on my website. Yeah, polar bears. Beautiful, dangerous, fragile. Go figure. Click here if you want to go straight to the gallery and click here if you want to go to my home page and see what else is new. 

Metta,

Shane