Living with Polar Bears
Page 6 of 7
Bruemmer: What happens is the water reaches a certain degree of coldness, and then ice begins to form. But first it’s quite mushy. The water is full of ice crystals but they don’t stick together. It’s like porridge. And then you suddenly get two or three really cold nights—I’m talking 20 to 30 below—and then all of a sudden, that’s it. The ice forms. And the moment that happens, off they go. One day you can have 30 bears at the Cape and the next day they’re all gone. Out there is the food—the seals are way out there.
PBI: What have you done with your books of notes?
Bruemmer: Oh, I still have them. I have published a lot. I don’t know how many articles I’ve written on polar bears—at least 50, maybe a hundred. To do this, you have to ask yourself, can I sit there for weeks on end and still enjoy this? And I do.
PBI: You had no way to communicate with anyone when you were stuck in the tower, did you?
Bruemmer: No; in those days, no. They dropped you off, picked you up—hopefully! Now they wouldn’t ever let you go out without some form of communication, of course. If you were ill, tough luck.
PBI: When did they start taking tourists to see the bears?
Bruemmer: About four years after I started. I came off the tower one time and somebody said, "there’s a guy called Dan Guravich wants to see you." And that, of course, meant something—he was a well-known photographer. So I went to his hotel and introduced myself; he knew of me, and he had come up there to take pictures of polar bears for a cigarette company. I’m fairly sure that it was some menthol thing, and the slogan was The Cool One, and they wanted polar bears to go with it. We got to talking and that started that part of it—not as tourism, but we later decided... and then we met Len Smith, who was also interested. He was already taking tourists around, but mostly for birding. He had these vehicles, but not the fancy tundra buggies now; they were much too expensive. But he was experimenting with them. But after everyone had left, Dan and Len and Fred Treul, we would share the cost and go out to the Cape for a week or two or whatever. Just for the fun of it, to take pictures and to watch the bears. But it wasn’t tourism in that sense; these were just friends who went out together. And then gradually Dan saw the possibilities of it and brought more people. And then eventually it became tourism. I did probably 10 articles or so on bears. When Dan came a couple of years later, he brought up the first tourists. I did the publicity to some extent, because already people heard about it. I had published in International Wildlife, National Wildlife. And a lot of European magazines; the Europeans are fascinated by polar bears. By that time polar bears were very much a part of my life. I don’t know how many pictures we took, between Dan and myself and Tom Mangelsen. I did a lot of books on my own: Encounters with Arctic Animals, The World of the Polar Bear. They [polar bears] became part of my life and also, part of my income. People would phone and say, "Can you write an article?"
PBI: Has interest in them changed to any degree? Back when you first started doing it, was there as much interest as there is now?
Bruemmer: Yes, but I think interest has changed... one of the problems today is the superb movies that they make, wildlife movies. What happens is a sort of Walt Disneyesque treatment—they become part of entertainment, which bothers me a bit. When I watch Imax films, they’re beautifully done but animals are part of human entertainment. They’re not in a world by themselves; they’re there to entertain us. And this is something that bothers me.
PBI: Do you think that leads to anything in terms of human attitude?
Bruemmer: Yes, it’s a sort of... the world becomes a zoo of sorts. It has the advantage that people are more conscious of animals, and for polar bears, the regulations have been very good and have kept up with the times. On the whole, polar bears are SO special that you have less of a disadvantage, but... It’s just that, when we started, it was obviously more scientific, and also there were fewer—and so, consequently, there are some things you can’t do and obviously shouldn’t do anymore... for example, we would go in and out of the tundra buggies, walking amongst the bears. Most of my good pictures were not taken from the buggy, because it looks down. I would climb out and go and walk out on the ice with the bears and take pictures of them.
PBI: And they didn’t ever turn on you?
Bruemmer: No, but at that time I knew my bears. I knew bears that were perfectly safe. These were individuals that I recognized, that I would have watched for days on end.
PBI: How close would you get?
Bruemmer: 20 feet, 30 feet. It was cool, but nowadays it’s something that wouldn’t be tolerated and shouldn’t be tolerated. It would be foolish.
PBI: What was the attitude of people in Churchill toward you?
PBI: What have you done with your books of notes?
Bruemmer: Oh, I still have them. I have published a lot. I don’t know how many articles I’ve written on polar bears—at least 50, maybe a hundred. To do this, you have to ask yourself, can I sit there for weeks on end and still enjoy this? And I do.
PBI: You had no way to communicate with anyone when you were stuck in the tower, did you?
Bruemmer: No; in those days, no. They dropped you off, picked you up—hopefully! Now they wouldn’t ever let you go out without some form of communication, of course. If you were ill, tough luck.
PBI: When did they start taking tourists to see the bears?
Bruemmer: About four years after I started. I came off the tower one time and somebody said, "there’s a guy called Dan Guravich wants to see you." And that, of course, meant something—he was a well-known photographer. So I went to his hotel and introduced myself; he knew of me, and he had come up there to take pictures of polar bears for a cigarette company. I’m fairly sure that it was some menthol thing, and the slogan was The Cool One, and they wanted polar bears to go with it. We got to talking and that started that part of it—not as tourism, but we later decided... and then we met Len Smith, who was also interested. He was already taking tourists around, but mostly for birding. He had these vehicles, but not the fancy tundra buggies now; they were much too expensive. But he was experimenting with them. But after everyone had left, Dan and Len and Fred Treul, we would share the cost and go out to the Cape for a week or two or whatever. Just for the fun of it, to take pictures and to watch the bears. But it wasn’t tourism in that sense; these were just friends who went out together. And then gradually Dan saw the possibilities of it and brought more people. And then eventually it became tourism. I did probably 10 articles or so on bears. When Dan came a couple of years later, he brought up the first tourists. I did the publicity to some extent, because already people heard about it. I had published in International Wildlife, National Wildlife. And a lot of European magazines; the Europeans are fascinated by polar bears. By that time polar bears were very much a part of my life. I don’t know how many pictures we took, between Dan and myself and Tom Mangelsen. I did a lot of books on my own: Encounters with Arctic Animals, The World of the Polar Bear. They [polar bears] became part of my life and also, part of my income. People would phone and say, "Can you write an article?"
PBI: Has interest in them changed to any degree? Back when you first started doing it, was there as much interest as there is now?
Bruemmer: Yes, but I think interest has changed... one of the problems today is the superb movies that they make, wildlife movies. What happens is a sort of Walt Disneyesque treatment—they become part of entertainment, which bothers me a bit. When I watch Imax films, they’re beautifully done but animals are part of human entertainment. They’re not in a world by themselves; they’re there to entertain us. And this is something that bothers me.
PBI: Do you think that leads to anything in terms of human attitude?
Bruemmer: Yes, it’s a sort of... the world becomes a zoo of sorts. It has the advantage that people are more conscious of animals, and for polar bears, the regulations have been very good and have kept up with the times. On the whole, polar bears are SO special that you have less of a disadvantage, but... It’s just that, when we started, it was obviously more scientific, and also there were fewer—and so, consequently, there are some things you can’t do and obviously shouldn’t do anymore... for example, we would go in and out of the tundra buggies, walking amongst the bears. Most of my good pictures were not taken from the buggy, because it looks down. I would climb out and go and walk out on the ice with the bears and take pictures of them.
PBI: And they didn’t ever turn on you?
Bruemmer: No, but at that time I knew my bears. I knew bears that were perfectly safe. These were individuals that I recognized, that I would have watched for days on end.
PBI: How close would you get?
Bruemmer: 20 feet, 30 feet. It was cool, but nowadays it’s something that wouldn’t be tolerated and shouldn’t be tolerated. It would be foolish.
PBI: What was the attitude of people in Churchill toward you?