this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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Polar Bear on the Hudson Bay coast in northern Ontario.
I'm Indigenous and I've gone hunting and trapping with my relatives a few times in my life. On one of those trips we happened on a polar bear on the mud flats of the bay during the late autumn. We drove by in our freighter canoe (a very large oversized canoe with a 60 HP outboard motor) and the bear swam near us and then walked by a few hundred feet away. It wasn't afraid but we were. We watched for a while and then fired rifle shot into the mud next to it to scare it away. From the moment it started to run to the point it disappeared as a speck on the horizon was about a minute or two. I went up later to look at the prints and the clay mud looked like a tractor had driven over it. I couldn't believe how fast it could move on the mud. I quickly sank in my boots and could barely walk around.
One paw print was about the size of my head. I never left camp without someone nearby or a rifle in my hands.
I'm told that the time it takes a polar bear to discover, stalk, hunt, kill and partially devour you is on the order of 10 minutes.
Most people do not survive a polar bear passing them in the bush.
I guess nobody can tell how big they are from photos. There's never someone standing next to them for comparison.
Seriously! They're the biggest land carnivores bar none. If you're 5' - 5'6" a bigger polar bear will be able to look you levelly in the eye while on all fours* and on its hind legs, it'll be more than half your height again.
*survivability of said staring contest is low