A Polar Bear Attacked Me, My Coworker, and My Canine Throughout a Geological Survey

This story, “Within the Jaws of the White Bear,” appeared within the April 1976 concern of Outside Life.

The Boothia Peninsula is the northernmost level on the mainland of North America. It was there, in July of final yr, {that a} analysis workforce of the  Canadian Wildlife Service captured a 420-pound polar bear as a part of Canada’s persevering with examine of its polar-bear inhabitants.

The boys subdued the bear with an immobilizing drug, weighed it, marked it for identification with black dye within the fur of the again, and recorded the specified details about it. In recent times that process has develop into routine in bear research throughout this nation and Canada.

When the job was completed and the bear had recovered from the results of the drug, the researchers watched it stroll away, questioning whether or not they would ever hear from it once more.

That was destined to occur, and beneath cir­cumstances they may not probably foresee.

In the meantime, on the north shore of Somerset Island, some 200 miles north of the place the bear had been captured and marked, a geological-survey celebration of eight — seven males, and a younger lady lately graduated from faculty, who was doing the cook dinner­ing  was camped in one of many bleakest locations off the coast of Canada’s Northwest Territories.

The camp consisted of seven tents set in a tough circle. I used to be a kind of males.

Somerset Island is among the most desolate locations within the Canadian Arctic. Not one of the arctic islands have bushes, however most of them are inexperienced with moss, grass, and dwarf willow that grows a couple of inches above the bottom. Many are made colourful in summer time by a profusion of wildflowers that bloom with startling suddenness within the unend­ing daylight. However not Somerset. It’s a barren place of limestone shingle, with drifting ice endlessly in sight simply offshore. There may be lit­ tle recent water and fewer meals for a bear within the barren inside of that large island.

Our crew was finding out seashore ero­sion and ice motion for the Geo­logical Survey of Canada. Aside from Bob Taylor, chief of the celebration, we have been faculty college students doing graduate work, or simply out of faculty. I used to be 23, engaged on my grasp’s de­gree at McGill College. The others have been all of their 20’s. Bob was a full­ time worker of the Geological Sur­vey in Ottawa. At 27, he had spent six summers within the excessive arctic.

Our job had nothing to do with college. Once more aside from Bob, we had employed out for the sum­ mer of 1975 as a result of we needed the earnings. It had confirmed a lonesome job. We had seen nearly nobody besides the members of our personal crew.

We had begun work on June 23. We have been on account of go away on the finish of August, and we have been trying ahead to getting again into human society. To inform the reality, by the top of sum­mer a few of us have been getting a bit homesick.

On high of that, there had been a time when recent meats and greens ran low and replacements that have been imagined to be flown in failed to return. We have been on a monotonous food regimen of canned roast beef and ham for a lot of days.

That state of affairs improved dramati­cally, nonetheless, when Suzanne Costas­chuk flew in and took over the cook dinner­ing. She introduced recent meals, spices, and different objects we had been doing with out, and our meals picked up. Suzanne was from Ottawa, beginning work on her grasp’s diploma. She additionally introduced along with her a 10-week-old Ger­man shepherd pup named Mitzi.

In these excessive latitudes there isn’t any darkness by means of the summer time. By late August the solar was setting about midnight, however it didn’t drop out of sight. About half of it confirmed as a shiny semi-disc shifting alongside the southern horizon, and there was ample gentle to learn by all night time lengthy. We had adjusted to the daylight nights, nonetheless. By the point we turned in, we have been drained sufficient to sleep, gentle or no gentle.

About 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Au­ gust 19, I used to be woke up by a scratch­ ing noise outdoors the sleeping tent oc­cupied by Ross Cameron and myself. At first I believed it was solely the wind, which regularly blows arduous on that desolate coast. However after a minute or two Mitzi, tied to a stake outdoors, be­gan to bark furiously. Ross and I spotted we had an intruder.

An arctic fox had prowled into the camp a number of instances, sniffing across the tents. Our first thought was that the fox had come again and that the canine, staked out that night time for the primary time, was resentful.

“I’ll scare it off,” Ross stated, and stepped to the opening of the tent. Subsequent he yelled, “It’s a polar bear!” Throughout the entire summer time we had seen just one polar bear, on June 24, and a few  tracks,  each  a  lengthy  approach from camp.

Ross and I had no gun in our tent. There have been three weapons in camp, all bolt-action .30/06 rifles. Two have been in different sleeping tents, the third within the kitchen tent.

“I’ll get the rifle,” Ross barked. He disappeared, working for the kitchen tent, and I ducked out of our tent to again him up. However I introduced up brief. A powerful white bear was stand­ing simply 10 toes away, ready for me, and me with a tough and hostile stare.

My first thought was, “What a gorgeous animal.” Then it flashed by means of my thoughts that we should eliminate him.

Mitzi was nonetheless leaping round on her leash, nonetheless barking angrily. I noticed that she had been badly clawed or bitten, and I spotted we have been coping with an enraged and harmful bear. We discovered later that for no obvious motive it had already torn up our two inflatable rubber boats. Be­ trigger it didn’t like the person odor on them? Who can say?

I unfold my arms as huge as I may and yelled on the high of my voice. The bear leaped for me as if a spring had been launched. On the best way he brushed the tent, ripped up its stakes, and tore a giant lease within the canvas. Then he was on me.

He didn’t rear erect or use a fore­ paw to belt me down. As an alternative he appeared to push me over along with his weight. Virtually earlier than I knew what was occurring, I used to be on the bottom and he was standing over me. He grabbed me by the pinnacle, and I felt myself being dragged alongside on the bottom. Far worse, I felt his tooth raking my scalp.

I used to be powerless to battle him off. I attempted to show my head away and professional­tect it with an arm, however that appeared to do no good in any respect. I may see blood on his paws, I suppose from the canine Mitzi.

Unusual ideas undergo a person’s thoughts at a time like that, and so they undergo like forked lightning. My first was that the entire thing was a  dangerous dream,  that  it  wasn’t  actually occurring. Then I knew it was no dream, and I considered my dad and mom and the way saddened they might be if I died there within the arctic. I considered buddies I’d by no means see once more. And all of the whereas I waited for the bear to crunch down on my cranium. I waited for the demise chunk. The very last thing I bear in mind considering was that if he crushed my head and I lived, I’d be no higher than a human vegetable. Then he was gone.

My ordeal had lasted not more than a minute or two, though it appeared for much longer than that. I doubt that something as dreadful will ever hap­ pen to me once more in my lifetime. Unusually sufficient, I had felt no ache — solely the sharp realization that I used to be going to die, accompanied by one thing near resignation. I learn as soon as that an assault by one of many large carnivores overwhelms the human nervous system and leaves the sufferer resistant to ache, and apparently that’s true. Definitely it was in my case, for the bear had given me a savage working over with out my feeling any actual damage.

By that point Bob Taylor and his tentmate Jim Savelle had taken a hand. Bob had seen polar bears come right into a camp earlier than. When he and Jim woke as much as the sound of screams and growls, he knew immediately what was occurring. They appeared out, couldn’t see me, however heard me screaming un­der the bear.

The 2 males saved a rifle helpful of their tent. Jim grabbed it, and Bob ran for the kitchen tent to get the gun there. Ross Cameron already had it out of its case, and he thrust it into Bob’s fingers. Bob stepped out, leveled the rifle, and pulled the set off. There was no shot. The firing pin fell with a ineffective click on.

Bob  will  by no means  be  totally  certain  what occurred, however he believes that in his haste and pleasure he had failed to tug the bolt of the rifle again far sufficient to maneuver a cartridge into the chamber.

“Once I bumped into the kitchen tent,” Bob says, “the bear was mauling John on the bottom, about 50 toes away. My solely thought was to get him off. Once I got here out, I dropped my eyes for a second to load the rifle, and once I appeared up the bear was com­ing for me, possibly 20 toes away, al­although it didn’t appear greater than 10.”

Bob tells the story of the assault this manner:

“He didn’t knock me down. He reached up, nonetheless on all fours, put entrance paw on my shoulder and pushed me over. I swung the barrel of the rifle as a membership, aiming for his head, however he was coming too quick. He dodged contained in the blow, and it landed hurt­lessly on his shoulder. Then I used to be on the bottom, and he had me by the again of the pinnacle.

“I doubt that he was on me far more than 30 seconds, actually no more than a minute, however it appeared like an eternity. I saved making an attempt to get my head away from him, and he saved going for the again of it. I may really feel and even hear his tooth scrape throughout my cranium, and I waited for the ultimate crunch. It’s well-known {that a} polar bear often kills a seal by biting sev­eral instances concerning the again of the pinnacle and again. Apparently this one meant to do me in the identical approach. However the human cranium is a bit too large for the jaws of a bear to get grip on, and it’s arduous sufficient in order that it doesn’t crush simply.

“He dragged me a couple of toes, dropped me, received a recent maintain, and dragged me once more. All of the whereas I used to be making an attempt to swing the rifle, making an attempt to knock him away, with little or no, luck. He will need to have resented that fi­nally, for he bit deep into my proper shoulder and put it out of motion. I may now not handle the rifle, and I believed to myself that the assault was pretty much as good as over. I had little doubt that he’d kill me.”

Within the meantime Jim Savelle had run out of his tent with the rifle saved there, loaded and prepared. The bear was now 50 or 60 toes away, dragging Bob out of camp. Savelle couldn’t shoot, for worry of hitting Bob. He held his fireplace till Bob’s arms, legs, and physique have been out of the best way. Then he fired on the bear’s shoulder.

Bob heard the shot. The  bear let go of him, and its head jerked up. Immediately Jim put a second shot into the pinnacle. We discovered when it was skinned that the primary shot had killed it, ranging up by means of the shoul­der and severing the backbone within the neck. The bear was useless on its toes when the pinnacle shot hit. That one al­so would have killed immediately. Jim Savelle had completed a cool job.

Bob scrambled erect and tried to run.

“I didn’t get far,” he stated after­ ward, “however I didn’t lose any time do­ing  it.” Jim  helped  him  into  the kitchen tent. Like me, he had felt no ache at any time.

I used to be already out of the motion. As quickly because the bear let go of me I had struggled to my toes and run for the kitchen tent, the place I attempted to radio Resolute Bay for assist. On the best way I handed the bear nearly shut sufficient to the touch, and I noticed odd-looking black stains on its again.

The entire assault had lasted hardly greater than two or three minutes, however it had left two of us severely torn across the head and shoulders, and the pet Mitzi bitten within the neck so badly that she needed to be put down.

Suzanne was one member of the celebration who had taken no hand. She had began to return out of her tent however thought higher of it, which was most likely lucky for her. I consider that with all of us working round, the bear would have gone for any­ physique it received its eyes on. Apparently it had failed to note Jim Savelle.

It was small as polar bears go. In actual fact, Bob Taylor remembered that whereas it was shifting towards him the thought had gone by means of his thoughts that it wasn’t a really large bear. That was confirmed when the Canadian Wildlife Service reported its weight at 420 kilos.

Somebody steered later that in all probability we have been the primary people it had ever encountered, however in fact that was not true.

We have been drastically stunned to be taught concerning the wildlife researchers who had captured and marked the bear solely a month earlier than on the Boothia Peninsula, on to the south of Somerset Island. That accounted for the black marks I had seen.

To succeed in our camp, the bear had traveled an airline distance of near 200 miles in a month. The best way the animal had come, it had most likely been fairly a bit farther than that. It’s my very own perception the bear most likely had walked and ridden drifting ice north alongside the coast of the island. Its abdomen was filled with seaweed.

That is among the frequent meals of the polar bear, however he turns to it solely when he’s unable to get meat. Seals are his mainstay, as long as he stays on the drifting ice. On land, the arctic islands supply him slim pickings, hardly greater than lemmings, birds and their eggs in summer time, and an occasional useless seal or whale that drifts up on the seashore.

We don’t consider that the bear that got here into our camp was pushed by starvation, however it could properly have been hungry for meat. Polar bears are notoriously unafraid of man. If any­ factor was wanted to ship this one into blind rage, the encounter with Suzanne’s canine would have completed it.

Our encounter had occurred brief­ly after 2:30 a.m. At that hour few radio stations are on the air within the arctic, however we have been fortunate. A Polar Continental Shelf Venture radio oper­ator in Tuktoyaktuk was monitoring his set, and he picked up our Could­ day sign directly. He contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and

in a really brief time a Twin Otter plane, piloted by Lorne Bradley, was on the best way from Resolute Bay. Inside two or three hours after the assault we have been within the Resolute Bay Nursing Station. A Dr. Braganza from the icebreaker Louis St. Laurent flew in by helicopter to deal with us.

The medical prognosis of our accidents was “a number of lacerations” on the pinnacle and again for each of us. That doesn’t fairly inform the story. What we had have been deep jagged cuts, inflicted by the bear’s tooth. It had not used its claws to do any severe harm. Every of us had greater than 10 cuts that required sutures to shut. I nonetheless don’t know what number of stitches it took. The injuries on my again confirmed the width of the bear’s paws at over 10 inches.

And if we had felt no ache when the bear tore at us, that actually couldn’t be stated for the stitching job. The physician used no native anes­thetic, and, in my case not less than, each sew damage like blazes. I can nonetheless hear him say, “Obtained to take another,” and I’d grit my tooth and look ahead to the curved needle. The remedy was far worse than the mauling.

However the work was properly completed. That night we have been flown by common jet to Frobisher Bay, on the south finish of Baffin Island some 500 miles to the southeast, and hospitalized there. Not a few years in the past Frobisher Bay was not more than a reputation on the map. Now it’s a bustling commu­nity of two,400 individuals.

We have been within the hospital 4 days, leaving for Montreal early Sunday morning, August 24.

Each of us made a whole recov­ery. The assault left no lasting injur­ies, and we have been in a position to return to our regular pursuits. Bob couldn’t use his proper arm for a couple of weeks, a results of the deep chunk within the shoulder, however earlier than the top of the yr it was pretty much as good as ever. All that is still now — lower than 9 months after the assault, as this journal reaches newsstands — are scars and recollections.

Learn Subsequent: I Was Mauled Over and Over Once more by a Grizzly. I Ought to Have Died

No, that isn’t fairly all that re­mains. We’ll at all times carry a really feel­ ing of deep gratitude to our camp mates for the best way they saved their heads and did the suitable issues.

If it hadn’t been for Bob Taylor, I might not be right here right this moment. And if it had not been for Jim Savelle, Bob wouldn’t be right here both.