Polar Bears

Unlike Mountain Gorillas, Polar Bears are plentiful if you go up to Churchill, Manitoba at the end of October.  You see that is the precise spot where Hudson Bay first freezes over each winter after a long thaw.  The Polar Bears who have been displaced from their native ice flows for the spring and summer are forced to slum in on the artic mainland for six months each year.  They can’t wait for the ice to freeze so that they can go back to hunting seals and get fat again.  So they wait it out mainly in and around Churchill, Manitoba.  Thousands of them wait, creating a photographers paradise.

Photo Tip:  Don’t leave the trailer.  These guys look cute and cuddly but given the chance they would eat you alive.  Remember they have been on a seal-free diet for six months and are very hungry.

In 1992 I stayed holed up in an Atco trailer for three days photographing these Polar Bears.  This shot is of two playful teenagers boxing.  I like the composition of them being caught on their hind legs. They seem to possess human like qualities in this stance.

page updated: 2007.07.04