My Favourite Assignments: Greg's Polar Bear Hunt

Getting ready

It was nearly thirty years ago, and I was living in Inuvik, working with the Inuvialuit (Inuit) in the Western Arctic to establish Inuvialuktun language media and train local journalists and television producers. (That work led to the creation of the Inuvialuit Communications Society (ICS), whose series Tamapta was eventually featured on Television Northern Canada (TVNC) and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).

During my first year in the region, I edited a quarterly magazine called Inuvialuit, which we later converted to a monthly newspaper, Tusaayaksat. Before there were any other staff members, I used to get around quite a bit to cover stories and take photographs for the magazine. In April, 1983 I was invited to photograph a polar bear hunt off Melville Island, an uninhabited area about 3-4 hours by Twin Otter north of Inuvik, NWT. Combined polar bear and muskox hunts were offered to wealthy sports hunters from around the world by Guided Arctic Expeditions, a new Inuvialuit venture designed to help people in the communities earn income from traditional activities. Each community received an allocation of tags each year allowing them to hunt so many polar bears, and the local Hunters and Trappers Association then decided how many of their tags to allocate to sports hunting, the rest being available to local hunters. It was a requirement that sports hunters use Inuvialuit guides and dog teams, which encouraged their re-introduction to the region.

Andy Carpenter

Preparations for the hunt were being made in Sachs Harbour. Two of the guides, John Lucas and Andy Carpenter, and I helped load a Twin Otter with all the gear, including tents, caribou skin mats, sleeping bags, food, sleds and 11 dogs, as well as a frozen seal to feed the dogs. There was barely room for Andy and I to squeeze in beside the cargo, and John sat on top of the pile near the back of the plane, holding a large club in case the dogs started to fight. Fortunately they were calm, and two hours later we landed on the ice off Melville Island, on a beautiful but cold (minus 40) day.

Because I wanted to photograph everything, I jumped out first, set my camera bag down on the snow, and started to snap pictures as the plane was unloaded, dogs first. But I hadn’t anticipated that after a long ride the dogs would need to relieve themselves, and there was only one thing sticking up above the snow covered ice for them to target – my camera bag. Fortunately liquid freezes quickly at that temperature.

Once unloaded, the plane took off to return to Inuvik. It was impressive to watch how quickly John and Andy set up camp. The first thing they did was start up a Coleman stove to boil water, while I was thinking: “Great, a nice hot cup of tea before we go to work.” However, the stove was to melt snow to use to raise the tents. Instead of using pegs, they chipped away a small hole in the ice, laid the rope in the hole, packed it with snow and splashed on some water to help snap freeze it into place. Soon we had a cozy camp established - three tents, a snow block sheltered latrine area, and two lines of dogs staked out in a V-formation. Inside the double walled tents, caribou skins were spread on the snow, making a great insulator, and the Coleman stove kept things pretty warm. I had brought a heavy duty down filled parka and pants, duffel lined canvas mukluks (boots) with moose hide soles, and a huge pair of bear and wolf skin mittens on strings so that I could remove them to take pictures without dropping them, and under these I wore light gloves. At that temperature, with a bit of wind, fingers freeze pretty quickly.

The three sports hunters and another guide, Peter Esau, flew in the next day. Two of the hunters were a husband and wife from Texas, and they were straight out of the television series Dallas – they owned a large ranch and oil business, and spent a lot of time big game hunting. They had just returned from Africa, where each had shot a rhinoceros, were both now doing a combined polar bear and musk ox hunt, and then planned to go on to Alaska to get a couple of brown bears. The full cost of a hunt at the time was likely at least $25,000 per person including transportation to and from Inuvik, accommodation and meals in transit, the Guided Arctic Expeditions hunt fee, local transportation, clothing, tips for the guides and trophy preparation and shipping. Sports hunters could stay out for around ten days if they didn’t get their animals sooner. In one case, a Swiss banker flew out on a Monday and was back on Wednesday because he shot a bear from in front of his tent; others went the full term of the hunt without getting anything, but that was less common.

Heading out on the hunt

Before the others arrived, John and Andy asked me to take a few shots at a target with John’s rifle so they could reassure themselves I knew how to use a gun. It had occurred to them, and to me as well, that once the three hunters, three guides and three dog teams left camp to go hunting, I would be left alone. And the only reason we were camped here was because there were lots of polar bears. There would be no dogs to warn me, and my camera wouldn’t be much protection if a bear did come into the camp, so John left me his rifle. Andy warned me not to stray too far from the tents. There were large pressure ridges of pushed up ice a few hundred yards from the camp – he told me a bear could come out of the ice and catch me before I could get back to the camp, and I knew he wasn’t joking. I asked what I should do if one did turn up, as I wasn’t supposed to be hunting, and he replied, seriously again: “Just shoot it in the foot and it will run away, and we can track it from the blood.”

After lunch everyone else left with the three dog teams to look for polar bears, while I remained in camp. It was too cold to stand around outside for long, so I stayed in the tent with the stove on, sticking my head out every half hour or so to look around. It was a long afternoon, but fortunately no bears turned up, and I was very relieved and happy to see three dog teams wending their way back towards camp that evening. They had seen tracks, but no bears. It still didn’t seem real to me that we were in polar bear country, but in many of the Inuvialuit communities we visited, there were always a few skins hanging out to dry so I knew they were out there. After a hot supper and conversation in the warmth of the tents, we went to bed fairly early. Everyone was tired, and looking forward to another full day’s activity.

Ready for transpot

Barking and voices woke me up around 6 a.m. “There’s a bear in the camp” Andy said. I rolled out of my sleeping bag and grabbed my camera, and crawled to the entrance, lying on my stomach and sticking my body halfway out to try to get some pictures. A huge male bear had crossed through the line of dogs and was about to take a swipe at one who cowered on the end of his three foot chain before turning towards a frozen seal carcass 20 meters or so from our tent. Most of the others were out in front of their tents, holding their guns. After a quick discussion, the Texan decided he would wait for a bigger bear and let his wife take this one. She shot it twice, and it ran off a hundred feet or so, trailing blood, before dropping in the snow. We went over cautiously, until one of the guides poked it with his rifle and confirmed it was dead.

Everyone dressed quickly as it was very cold, then the guides hitched three dogs to the carcass and dragged it back to the camp, where it was gutted and skinned before it had time to freeze. The dogs would get the meat, and the hunters the skin. I had managed to get quite a few photos and it was an exciting experience, that brought home the fact that there really were polar bears roaming around this area. Many times afterwards I have wondered what might have happened had one or more come into camp while I was alone in the tent.

The plane returned the next day to bring more supplies, and I got a ride home to Inuvik. A couple of weeks later I learned that the husband never did find a bigger bear, despite ten more days of hunting. In fact he had turned over the biggest one that year shot by any hunter to his wife.

Greg Smith