Living with Polar Bears
Page 4 of 7
Bruemmer: No, I was alone; we didn’t walk the trap line together. It would go in two directions from the tent, so two would go one direction and I would go the other one. And if there was a bear I would come back and let them know and they would go tranquilize it. But I was on my own.
PBI: Did you have any close calls that scared the life out of you?
Bruemmer: Yes. I had at least a thousand bear encounters. But it was only one bear that ever attacked me. And that happened to be when I was with Jonkel, who was allowed to carry a gun—he carried a .45 Magnum, which is a very, very heavy revolver. And the bear came and attacked us: he just marched off a rock and came right at us. And he shot in front of him and that turned the bear around. That bear, we catch the bear because we want to know what ails him, what’s wrong with him. Apparently nothing, but he was a very skinny bear, and maybe hungry. That same bear, two years later, killed an Indian. So, there are very few polar bears that are truly aggressive, unless they’re very hungry or have been wounded or hurt. But the trouble is, you only need one aggressive bear. If Jonkel hadn’t been there, that bear would have killed me. Absolutely no question—he came to kill. He came right after me to kill me.
PBI: A bear biologist I know said it’s like humans, that every once in a while, there’s just a personality that is hostile—but the vast majority aren’t looking for trouble.
Bruemmer: Exactly. As you know, I spent quite a bit of time sitting in that tower at Cape Churchill. It was a wonderful place to observe bears and their behavior. And there you had bears that not only came and tried to get me out of the tower, so they were obviously aggressive, but also, these bears were feared by the other bears. At that time, at CC, you sometimes had up to 20 to 30 bears. I wasn’t alone, I had a friend of mine; we both stayed in the tower. But the bears came back year after year; you got to know them very well. The same bears came back. The second year you started seeing ones you recognize: there’s so-and-so and so-and-so (you give them names), and suddenly you realize you’ve seen most of the bears you saw the previous year. And then as you get more used to it, you also realize—and I kept very detailed notes—that the bears that were friendly in year 1 are equally friendly in years 2, 3, 4, and 5. The odd bear that was hostile was hostile throughout the time. So I think it’s very much individual.
PBI: How did they show hostility?
Bruemmer: Hostility is they look at you like you would look at lunch. And they stare at you. And also the lower lip comes out, they hiss, they snarl. You’re glad you’re up in the tower where they can’t reach you.
PBI: So there’s no question...
Bruemmer: Oh, you know if you come off that tower, the bear is going to get you. Oh yeah, he’s just waiting for it.
PBI: How high up were you when you were inside the little building?
Bruemmer: 45 feet high; you’re very safe. And we would come down to the 12-foot level and there was only one bear that could reach us. He could reach 14 feet up. That’s a gigantic bear—and a very nasty one. He was well known, not just to us but to everybody there. The bear that everybody was afraid of, including other bears. Eventually he was killed. I didn’t see him killed, it wasn’t close to the tower; but he was well over 20 years old.
PBI: He was killed because he was attacking?
Bruemmer: I don’t know. He was a very old bear; he was an incredibly grouchy bear. All the other bears were scared of him. And he would come up to the tower and he would just sit there and say, "Come down; come down; come down." (laughs) It was his pet dream to get us down; it went on for many years.
PBI: What did you name him?
Bruemmer: He had many names. I called him Cassius, after Caesar, "the lean and hungry one." I wrote a lot about him. Cassius was quite a character; he had that lean and hungry look.
PBI: Why did you initially decide that you wanted to go out to the Cape and observe?
Bruemmer: That tower was used by the Wildlife Service, but only in summer. Later they were already starting to use helicopters and so the tower was always empty. I asked Ian Stirling if I could use the tower, and he said sure, just take notes and I want to have the notes. So that seemed a very nice exchange. We would land there by plane, with provisions and water for two, three weeks, and then we’d sit up there.
PBI: You would bring your provisions with you and then make trips back and forth up to the tower to deliver it?
Bruemmer: The plane would fly around to make sure the bears didn’t get anything and so we got everything up to the tower. It took maybe an hour or two; then we’d get a little pulley and pull everything up. Everything we needed, because once we were in that tower we couldn’t come down again for two weeks.
PBI: What’s it like inside the building? What’s inside?
Bruemmer: The building was empty. We just brought up a couple of mattresses. It was 7 foot by 7 foot and not insulated.
PBI: How did you prepare meals?
Bruemmer: We had a small propane stove for cooking, and fortunately my friend was fairly good at that sort of thing. We lived all right.
PBI: What about heat?
PBI: Did you have any close calls that scared the life out of you?
Bruemmer: Yes. I had at least a thousand bear encounters. But it was only one bear that ever attacked me. And that happened to be when I was with Jonkel, who was allowed to carry a gun—he carried a .45 Magnum, which is a very, very heavy revolver. And the bear came and attacked us: he just marched off a rock and came right at us. And he shot in front of him and that turned the bear around. That bear, we catch the bear because we want to know what ails him, what’s wrong with him. Apparently nothing, but he was a very skinny bear, and maybe hungry. That same bear, two years later, killed an Indian. So, there are very few polar bears that are truly aggressive, unless they’re very hungry or have been wounded or hurt. But the trouble is, you only need one aggressive bear. If Jonkel hadn’t been there, that bear would have killed me. Absolutely no question—he came to kill. He came right after me to kill me.
PBI: A bear biologist I know said it’s like humans, that every once in a while, there’s just a personality that is hostile—but the vast majority aren’t looking for trouble.
Bruemmer: Exactly. As you know, I spent quite a bit of time sitting in that tower at Cape Churchill. It was a wonderful place to observe bears and their behavior. And there you had bears that not only came and tried to get me out of the tower, so they were obviously aggressive, but also, these bears were feared by the other bears. At that time, at CC, you sometimes had up to 20 to 30 bears. I wasn’t alone, I had a friend of mine; we both stayed in the tower. But the bears came back year after year; you got to know them very well. The same bears came back. The second year you started seeing ones you recognize: there’s so-and-so and so-and-so (you give them names), and suddenly you realize you’ve seen most of the bears you saw the previous year. And then as you get more used to it, you also realize—and I kept very detailed notes—that the bears that were friendly in year 1 are equally friendly in years 2, 3, 4, and 5. The odd bear that was hostile was hostile throughout the time. So I think it’s very much individual.
PBI: How did they show hostility?
Bruemmer: Hostility is they look at you like you would look at lunch. And they stare at you. And also the lower lip comes out, they hiss, they snarl. You’re glad you’re up in the tower where they can’t reach you.
PBI: So there’s no question...
Bruemmer: Oh, you know if you come off that tower, the bear is going to get you. Oh yeah, he’s just waiting for it.
PBI: How high up were you when you were inside the little building?
Bruemmer: 45 feet high; you’re very safe. And we would come down to the 12-foot level and there was only one bear that could reach us. He could reach 14 feet up. That’s a gigantic bear—and a very nasty one. He was well known, not just to us but to everybody there. The bear that everybody was afraid of, including other bears. Eventually he was killed. I didn’t see him killed, it wasn’t close to the tower; but he was well over 20 years old.
PBI: He was killed because he was attacking?
Bruemmer: I don’t know. He was a very old bear; he was an incredibly grouchy bear. All the other bears were scared of him. And he would come up to the tower and he would just sit there and say, "Come down; come down; come down." (laughs) It was his pet dream to get us down; it went on for many years.
PBI: What did you name him?
Bruemmer: He had many names. I called him Cassius, after Caesar, "the lean and hungry one." I wrote a lot about him. Cassius was quite a character; he had that lean and hungry look.
PBI: Why did you initially decide that you wanted to go out to the Cape and observe?
Bruemmer: That tower was used by the Wildlife Service, but only in summer. Later they were already starting to use helicopters and so the tower was always empty. I asked Ian Stirling if I could use the tower, and he said sure, just take notes and I want to have the notes. So that seemed a very nice exchange. We would land there by plane, with provisions and water for two, three weeks, and then we’d sit up there.
PBI: You would bring your provisions with you and then make trips back and forth up to the tower to deliver it?
Bruemmer: The plane would fly around to make sure the bears didn’t get anything and so we got everything up to the tower. It took maybe an hour or two; then we’d get a little pulley and pull everything up. Everything we needed, because once we were in that tower we couldn’t come down again for two weeks.
PBI: What’s it like inside the building? What’s inside?
Bruemmer: The building was empty. We just brought up a couple of mattresses. It was 7 foot by 7 foot and not insulated.
PBI: How did you prepare meals?
Bruemmer: We had a small propane stove for cooking, and fortunately my friend was fairly good at that sort of thing. We lived all right.
PBI: What about heat?