Sergeant Ian Van Nest drives slowly through the streets of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. His eyes settle on a crowd of people standing outside a van. He scans the area for safety and then quietly addresses the group’s leader.
“How are you today?” Van Nest asks.
The leader responds warily, asking if the group’s location is acceptable.
“You’re good. You got a lot of distance there,” Van Nest says. He’s a conservation officer for the province of Manitoba. He cautions tourists gazing at a polar bear on the rocks. “When you have people disembarking from the vehicle, you should have a bear monitor. So, if that’s you, just have your shotgun with you, right?” He instructs the leader: If a bear gets too close, fire shots to scare the creature away.
It’s the beginning of polar bear season in Churchill, a tiny town on a spit of land jutting into Hudson Bay. This remote town not only lives with the predators nearby but also depends upon and even loves them.
Visitors eager to see polar bears saved the town when a military base closed in the 1970s. Estimates say the average polar bear tourist spends about $5,000 per visit. That pumps millions of dollars into the tiny town each year.
“You know we’re the polar bear capital of the world, right? We have the product, it’s just about getting out there to see the bears safely,” says Dave Daley. He owns a gift shop, runs dog sleds, and talks up the city big time.
Today, there are about 600 polar bears there—close to one bear for every resident.
“We’re obviously used to bears so [when you see one] you don’t start to tremble,” Mayor Mike Spence says. “It’s their area too. It’s important how the community coexists with bears and wildlife in general.”
Any time of year, troublesome bears that wander into town too often may get put into the polar bear jail before being returned to the wild. That’s a structure with 28 concrete-and-steel cells. The building can get noisy from banging and growling inside, Van Nest says.
Churchill and Manitoba officials “put together a polar bear alert program to make sure the community members were looked after,” says Spence.
The town’s curfew siren blares nightly at 10:00 p.m., suggesting it’s time to go home to safety.
One Saturday night, a truck shows up at some parties on the town beach—a favorite spot for bears coming inland. A government guard gets out, armed with a shotgun. He walks on the dunes and scans the horizon for polar bears. He’s there to scare away any bears with warning shots, flares, bear spray, or noise—not kill them.
For Van Nest, the group he came upon that day was safe from a bear about 300 yards away. He says the bear was “putting on a bit of a show” for the tourists.
“This is a great situation to be in,” he says. “The tourists are a safe distance away and the bear’s doing his natural thing and not being harassed by anybody.”
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. — 1 Peter 5:8
