SIREN CUTS THROUGH
the frozen air. I look over at
Doug as we press through
the sideways sleet. ‘The
siren signals voluntary curfew,’ he
says. ‘Mainly so kids know it’s time to
come home.’ The air-raid-style alarm
also indicates the start of dawn-to-
dusk armed patrols scouring the
streets for polar bears in the remote
Canadian town of Churchill.
As with all apex predators, a polar
bear’s presence is felt even when it’s
not there. Humans gingerly step
around the ghost of its shape, eyes
cast over their shoulders, the
ever-present chance of its appearance
shaping day-to-day existence.
Boreal storms may have blown away
the bears’ hubcap-sized pawprints on
Churchill’s snowy shores, but hazard
signs alert me to their preferred path
along the beach. Unlocked cars on the
streets point not only, I learn, to an
enviable lack of crime, but also to the
need for panic rooms for pedestrians
in case of surprise charges from the
biggest carnivore to walk the Earth.
‘Mostly, they don’t like town,’ says
Doug, one of Churchill’s expert
wildlife guides. ‘It’s noisy and smells
funny.’ Still, some do, notably
juveniles and, even though you
can’t see inside the ‘polar bear jail’,
a former aircraft hangar where strays
are held before being transported
by helicopter and released, it’s one
of the first stops for the thousands of
tourists who descend on Churchill
in polar-bear season. A day spent
bumping around Churchill’s boggy
bay in an all-terrain Tundra Buggy
is the best way to track them, albeit
slowly, painfully, patiently. My
fingers freeze, poised on my camera
button, my eyesstreamwhiletrained
through binocularsscanningthe
sleet-blasted horizon,eyelashes
growing iciclesintheArcticgusts
thatlashtheopenviewingplatform.
Minutes,hourstickby.Thena yelp
goesup.Silenceisgoldeninwildlife-
spotting,butthethrillhasproventoo
intense.It’sdistant– maybe400m
away– anaverage-sizedfemale,In the icy northern habitat of the planet’s biggest land carnivore, humans
exist in a state of trepidation, with daily life adapted to avoid risky encounters.
When finally faced witha polar bear, Sarah Barrell felt pure, soul-lifting awe
Meet the planet’s giants
thinks Doug. She’s curled up, nose in
her paws, coal eyes closed against the
wind. She lifts her head intermittently,
quizzical, licking at the nutrients in
the kelp bed. She yawns, then nestles
her giant head back down. I could
stare for hours at her endearing,
boulder-like bulk, but the radio
buzzes. Another buggy has a sighting.
We find the animal quickly this
time; a young male pawing at the
kelp with claws like garden rakes,
his comically mobile, powerful nose
roving for our scent. We get within
20 metres. He’s huge, but not close
to the 900kg of a fully grown male.
For 20 mesmerising minutes we
watch him sniff and scrape around
the shoreline. And then, suddenly,
he’s moving towards us, fast.
He’s at the truck in seconds. I’ve no
time to refocus my camera. He’s too
close. He rears, paws on the truck’s
side, head straining over the edge not
even a metre from my face. I squeak
a strangled scream, and instinctively
step back. He fixes me with his eyes.
My pulse hammers in every vein, but
it’s not fear; it’s overwhelming awe,
breathtaking joy, even love – an
immensity of emotion proportional
to his size. I feel as if, for the first
time, I’ve really been seen by another
living thing. It’s the most gentle,
piercing and pure stare I’ve ever
encountered. Doug looks at me, as
misty-eyed as I am. ‘It doesn’t matter
how many times they look at you,’
he says. ‘It changes you for ever.’
F From July to November,
Frontiers North offers one-day
buggy excursions in Churchill Wildlife
Management Area (£180 June to
August, £400 September to
November); you can stay overnight
at TundraBuggyLodge.In November
it hostsa twelve-dayexpeditionto
WapuskNationalParkto seefemales
denwiththeircubs(£7,600;
frontiersnorth.com).sarahbarrellis a travelwriterwholives
in LondonandNewYork,andwrote
LonelyPlanet’sItalyFromtheSource
cookbook(£18.99;lonelyplanet.com)
PHOTOGRAPH: JONATHAN GREGSON