âi read somewhere that until youâre standing in the middle of nowhere, head in hands desperate to quit and go home, youâre just on vacation. after that, itâs a proper adventure.â so notes paul souders, who navigated the western coast of the hudson bay alone in his inflatable zodiac boat, âfrustrated by poor charts, bad weather and my own meager maritime skills.âÂ
say paul, âthe distances were vast for a small boat like mine, and the immensity of the play sometimes turned oppressive. northern manitobaâs interior is a huge, flat forest, and the coastline is shallow and badly mapped. every time i left my âbigâ boat, i reminded myself that if i screw up, i die. as careful as i was, i know in my heart that the arctic is too big, too empty and too cold to count on anyone coming to my rescue.â
âi was three weeks into the trip before i saw my first polar bears, and it was only after motoring more than 1500 nautical miles (2775 kilometres) and reaching the arctic circle. searching for polar bears out on the sea ice is insanely difficult. sea ice isnât uniformly white [and] polar bears arenât pure white either. in the warm light of the setting midnight sun, pretty much everything looks like a bear.Â
âso it took a lot of patience and concentration to finally find one. âŚi kept a healthy distance for a long time, allowing her to relax a bit. the bears can swim for more than a hundred miles, for days at a time, but i tried very hard not to stress her. sowly her curiosity began to kick in, and âŚby sunset, she was swimming slowly beside me and i was able to lower my underwater camera housing right beside her.â
see also: the plight of canadaâs polar bears
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