Polar Bears and More

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I’m on the flight home from Seattle after an extraordinary experiencephotographing polar bears on the north coast of Alaska.  We were in Kaktovik (pop. 250), which is onBarter Island off the north coast.  Noroads go there, just an airport runway without any terminal where you getpicked up by whoever is expecting you. From the north coast you can see theBrooks Range, which gave us some great landscape images along with an amazingsunrise.The bears hang out mostly on some smaller islands a few hundred yardsoffshore.  However, they do swim over andcan be roaming the town at night looking for food.  You don’t wander outside at night.  The bears gather in this area waiting for thewater north of the coast to freeze over so they can head further north insearch of seals.We were able to photograph the bears from a 4-door pickup truck and from a smallboat we chartered.  We were hoping for anice snow cover on the ground but it has been unusually warm and the snow hadnot come yet but we were still able to get some great images.  We would occasionally nose the boat intoshore for stability but the young cubs tended to be curious and would approachthe boat every time, as you can see in one of the photos.  We would back away from shore every time justto be sure they didn’t try to join us in the boat.The local native population is allowed to harvest 3 bowhead whales eachyear to feed the village through the winter. While we were there, they managed to bring in their second whale and itwas quite a big deal for the whole town. Everyone showed up at the beach about 9pm when the three small boatstowed in the 47 foot whale which was followed by a number of polar bears in thewater behind it.  After the whale was onthe beach there were a number of rituals including the town children standingon the whale for their photos to be taken. The bears had to be encouraged to stay away, mostly by the use ofcracker shells from shotguns.  Theprocess of dividing up the whale meat among the town is quite involved, aswell.There were probably about 30 or so bears hanging around, mostly waiting onleftovers from the whale.  From what wesaw, the bears in this part of the world are in great shape and in no danger ofstarving.  As we understand, the localbear population is increasing.The photos in the slideshow represent the variety of our experience.  The big white bears are incredible animals.  Although they look cute and cuddly, they maybe the most dangerous animal out there. Maybe that is why they are so fascinating to photograph.