Living with Polar Bears
Page 7 of 7
Bruemmer: Churchill was pretty relaxed about the whole thing. They were already familiar with birders, so they knew the world was full of nuts who liked to watch animals. Back then, you’d be sitting in a restaurant and suddenly there would be a big howl because a bear tried to get in the kitchen.
PBI: Why haven’t you been back since '93?
Bruemmer: I had a friend in Kenya, and I started photographing in the parks in Kenya. I spent several years traveling to other countries and other places.
PBI: Are you still working?
Bruemmer: Yes. The last book I did [The Marvel of Massed Animals] was about massed animals—in New Zealand, Antarctica, Falkland Islands, all over the world.
PBI: Going back to your travels with native people, was it only with the Inuit that you lived?
Bruemmer: Only with the Inuit—in Greenland, all across Canada, Alaska, and just a little bit into Siberia.
PBI: For how many years?
Bruemmer: Not every year, but if you add them up, nearly 50 years. And then it was over. Now, their lives are totally different. And what I’ve seen and what I did is now largely historical. Most of my pictures now are used by museums. It was probably inevitable. I’m glad I did it, because nobody else did it and if I hadn’t done it, it would have been lost. It certainly wasn’t money that drove me; it was curiosity and a feeling that somebody ought to do this. Their culture totally changed, and whether they want to or not, they’ve gradually become assimilated. They work in stores, they work in businesses, they work in the government, they own the third-largest diamond company in the world... and they’re just as remote from their past as we are remote from our farming past.
PBI: How do you handle big city living [Bruemmer and his wife now live in Montreal], with your delight in isolation?
Bruemmer: We live in a suburb, so we have the quietness of a suburb area but the city things are close by. We still get away. Two years ago we went to Georgia [in the former Soviet Union]. You can go to these mountain villages where they haven’t seen a foreigner, ever. Living conditions are very primitive. People are super friendly, and you can walk for days in the mountains and there’s absolutely nobody. I speak Russian, so that was no problem. Fluently, I speak four languages. And I can manage another four or five. I grew up with language. German was my first language, then Latvian, Russian—as a very young child I spoke all three, then kept adding. So in Georgia, there’s a loneliness and a freedom that I found absolutely marvelous. That sort of travel I still like very, very much.
PBI: Why haven’t you been back since '93?
Bruemmer: I had a friend in Kenya, and I started photographing in the parks in Kenya. I spent several years traveling to other countries and other places.
PBI: Are you still working?
Bruemmer: Yes. The last book I did [The Marvel of Massed Animals] was about massed animals—in New Zealand, Antarctica, Falkland Islands, all over the world.
PBI: Going back to your travels with native people, was it only with the Inuit that you lived?
Bruemmer: Only with the Inuit—in Greenland, all across Canada, Alaska, and just a little bit into Siberia.
PBI: For how many years?
Bruemmer: Not every year, but if you add them up, nearly 50 years. And then it was over. Now, their lives are totally different. And what I’ve seen and what I did is now largely historical. Most of my pictures now are used by museums. It was probably inevitable. I’m glad I did it, because nobody else did it and if I hadn’t done it, it would have been lost. It certainly wasn’t money that drove me; it was curiosity and a feeling that somebody ought to do this. Their culture totally changed, and whether they want to or not, they’ve gradually become assimilated. They work in stores, they work in businesses, they work in the government, they own the third-largest diamond company in the world... and they’re just as remote from their past as we are remote from our farming past.
PBI: How do you handle big city living [Bruemmer and his wife now live in Montreal], with your delight in isolation?
Bruemmer: We live in a suburb, so we have the quietness of a suburb area but the city things are close by. We still get away. Two years ago we went to Georgia [in the former Soviet Union]. You can go to these mountain villages where they haven’t seen a foreigner, ever. Living conditions are very primitive. People are super friendly, and you can walk for days in the mountains and there’s absolutely nobody. I speak Russian, so that was no problem. Fluently, I speak four languages. And I can manage another four or five. I grew up with language. German was my first language, then Latvian, Russian—as a very young child I spoke all three, then kept adding. So in Georgia, there’s a loneliness and a freedom that I found absolutely marvelous. That sort of travel I still like very, very much.