See a polar bear in the wild

“Stooping to one knee, I watched through a porthole as he poked at the base ship, a mere few feet from me. Suddenly, he looked up. In that moment, face to face with the largest marine mammal in the world, it felt like there was a thread between us. I could see the white of his great brown eyes and I saw in them a childlike curiosity a world away from the ferociousness I had expected from Attenborough documentaries.”

“Back up! Back up! Back up!” whispers our guide Tara, who for the first time this whole week places one hand on the 12-gauge shotgun slung over her left shoulder. Our group scampers back – tripods and all – without delay. [...] Bob ambles by 20 feet away, looks over, raises his massive and adorable square muzzle for a sniff and then continues lumbering across the ice. Clearly, he’s not the least bit concerned with us. Why would he be when he outweighs each of us by at least 800 pounds?”

“We did Churchill in 2017 during October bear season, came from New Zealand for it. We did 2 full days out on the tundra, it was incredible. We saw a mother and cubs, 4 or 5 other bears and then on the 2nd day 2 males sparring which was just incredible. [...] We had bears come right up against the tundra buggy on their back legs.”