Polar Bears!

A polar bear sits in a little pile of snow on a windswept beach along the Arctic Ocean. Like playing alone in an above-ground pool, there just isn't much fun to be had alone in her little snowdrift.

🐻  🐻  🐻

Kaktovik, Alaska (pop. 283) is an Inupiat community at the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

To reach Barter Island, you have to brave the formidable Brooks Range and land on an airstrip surrounded by water. Barter Island was named for its role as an Arctic trade destination.

Inupiat residents of Kaktovik hunt bowhead whales that they tow back to town to butcher at the end of the island at a place called the bonepile. This attracts polar bears. Hunting and fishing helps put food on the table for this remote community.

Bears conserve their energy during the long warm months. Fewer than 1,000 polar bears live along this stretch of Arctic. Seeing so many bears in one place demonstrates how little food there is for them for half the year.

My bear guide was a musher who competed each year in the Iditarod sled-dog race. Playing with his puppies was a highlight of my visit. Which one do you want?

 

Bears sleep on a silty sandbar, which turns their white coat dingy brown. 

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Besides some gulls, geese and ducks, I didn't see much other wildlife during my two-day stay. But snow buntings with their toasted marshmallow colors were yard birds for one resident who shared some cracked corn. I used to see them most winters in New Jersey.

A bear takes shelter from the icy wind in the lee of a driftwood log. Even frost bears can get cold.

An enormous male polar bear roams the edge of a sandbar. Moms had to be vigilant here to protect their cubs from other bears. 

I got to see the first snowfall of the long Arctic winter. Bears rolled in the snow to regain their glossy, white coats. It would not be long before ice would return to the Beaufort Sea, allowing the bears to return to the ocean to hunt seals.

My guide took me out on his fishing boat to look for bears. Photo conditions were challenging, with dark skies, sustained 30-knot winds, snow and low visibility. We were on our own. The nearest Coast Guard helicopter was 900 miles away in Kodiak.

A bear investigates an enticing scent in the snow.

A cub curls up next to her sleeping mom in the falling snow. This was my favorite pic of the trip.