Wild polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba

For the last 6 years, I have had the pleasure and opportunity to lead a variety of natural history and wildlife trips for Natural Habitat Adventures. From guiding beluga whale trips in Northern Canada to panda bear and Asiatic black bear trips in China, I have been very fortunate. But the trip with the highest potential for impact is the polar bears of Churchill. And it is about time that I write a blog about this! (Check out WWF's write up about me!)

In brief, this trip involves bouncing along in giant vehicles (e.g. the height of the tires are above my head) to witness the polar bear migration to the shores of the southern (West) Hudson Bay as they (impatiently) wait for sea ice to form. 

The trip is more than just about viewing polar bears. The trip is about understanding bears as the magicians that they are. Everything is a phenomenon in polar bears. From the pregnant females that "hibernate", the dropping of scat during "walking hibernation", the need for sparring practice, the viscosity of their tears, and much more, polar bears are a true marvel of nature. Slaves to their extreme ability to pick up scents, polar bears are wondrous animals to observe as they choose paths that might elicit their curiosity. 

It is easy to understand this type of drive in polar bears as they figure out their world. We seem to share this ambition to find and get to the end of our individual worlds. I once heard that searching for meaning in our lives is better than living a life of avoiding discomfort. 

This was a stress study in humans that showed that harnessing the positives of stress was possible. Physical stress is a way that our bodies prepare us for events but there is a way to maintain a normal blood vessel dilation, with a raised heart rate (e.g. that feeling in your chest when you know your heart is racing due to some event or thing that is stressful). This study showed that reaching out to others and using our ability to be compassionate towards each other is one way of doing just that to handle stress. In other words, stress can lead to compassion, which can lead to courage. 

What is the connection with this and polar bears? Well, the future of polar bears stresses me out. And polar bears elicit compassion in multiple ways. My clients on the trips I lead often marvel at how "cute" bears are, and usually someone will say out loud how much they want to give them a hug. I can see why they think that, but we need to remember that polar bears are not adorable; they are majestic and awesome - in the real sense of the word “awe”. 

This leads me to wonder about using the effect of polar bears on people to take on courageous acts to preserve what is important to us (e.g. healthy free-roaming animals and their habitats, clean water, ecosystem productivity, etc.). Members of the environmental movement since the 1970s (and even before) have tried to drive that kind of change many times over with telling images of our world changing. Along those lines, there is nothing quite like looking into the eyes of a wild polar bear and having that moment define what you might say and do back on a street corner in a bustling city. 

I believe a balance is possible in all this, but we are far from sorting out our political (including economic and social) and environmental dilemmas and internal struggles. Personally, I struggle with the environmental impacts of the choices I make in my life. 

It is not easy for anyone, really. But we have to try to help each other out, if anything, for the sake of the future of the reigning king of the arctic kingdom, the polar bears.