Tired...but motivated

You know what the worst thing about going away for a few days is? Yeah, that's right...coming back and having to get everything back to normal again. That means turning the thermostats back up, unpacking and putting my junk away, doing the laundry, going shopping, putting out more deer food, etc. And of course I need to get to the gym since I haven't done anything for a week.

Well I made up for that last one today. As luck would have it, right when I hit the treadmill and started running, probably the only episode of Burn Notice that I haven't seen came on the gym TV. So I watched it as I ran, and because it was a good episode (It was the one where Lucy Lawless plays an assassin...Terisita and Kim, you'd like this one.) I wanted to watch it all the way through. And because I'd have felt like a dope just standing there by the exercise machines watching it, I had to keep running for the whole hour. So I got six and a half miles in--well above my regular regimen--just because I'm addicted to a damned TV show. Very sad. But on the other hand, I got six and a half miles in. Yay me.

Of course I didn't run as fast as this guy had to run the other day. But then I've never had his kind of motivation.It seems that he was working as a surveyor in Barrow, AK, when this polar bear snuck up on him, no doubt looking for a hot snack.He tried to get into his SUV, but for some stupid reason, he'd locked the doors. (Come on--who steals cars in Barrow? Barrow is a small native village right up on the Arctic Ocean and it's not like there's roads that actually go anywhere past the village limits. Besides that, there are so few cars that everyone knows who they all belong to. But because his doors were locked and because the bear wouldn't give him time to get in, he had to run round and round the truck with the bear hot on his heels.Now these bears can run up to 25mph when they want something, and it looks like this bear was motivating his chosen dinner companion to move at least a bit faster. The guy eventually ran to another nearby truck which was unlocked (and now we know why natives leave their cars and trucks unlocked) and got in, escaping with only a minor mauling as the bear's claws cut his head, neck and back right through his heavy arctic clothing.Looks like he made it just in time. Brer' Bear sure did seem to be closing that gap.

Now this reminds me of my first night in Barrow a few years ago when Liz and I were up there. I just had to go out that first night and experience the -40 temperature and see the Northern Lights (which are actually south of Barrow). I roamed around for a bit, walking out of the village for a bit to get away from the streetlights, and took in the view from a spot about a mile down the shoreline until I got cold and went back to our lodging where the ever-more-sensible Liz was still inside watching TV.

The next day, we were out with a native guide and I casually pointed out the spot where I'd walked to to see the lights. Immediately the guide--a large, capable Inuit--turned to me and asked rather incredulously: "You were out here? At night? By yourself?"
I told him that yes, I had been, and asked if there was something wrong with that. After all, I was a tough ghetto cop from down below. What could possibly be so dangerous out here in the middle of nowhere?

Our guide looked at me like I was an idiot and told me that he'd lived there his whole life and wouldn't even consider being that far out of town after dark. When he saw my looking obviously puzzled, he told me about the polar bears. The ones that hunt close to town after dark and can smell a human a mile away and run up on you so fast and so silently that you won't even know what killed you.

Gee, I hadn't thought of that. But fortunately (or so I thought), at least I was armed. And I told him that I'd been covered.

He asked me what kind of gun I was carrying. I gave him my best "Joe Cool" smile and told him that it was a Smith and Wesson Model 66, .357 Magnum.

"Well if you go out alone like that again, you're going to want to file that front sight down smooth," he said. "That way, when the 1,200 lb. polar bear shoves it up your ass, it won't hurt as much."

I got the message. On the Alaskan North Slope, man is not the top of the food chain, even in this day and age. I made no more solo forays out after dark. If the locals respected and feared the polar bear, well that was all it took to get me to respect and fear the polar bear. I'm betting that the surveyor above has a new respect for them today too.

Since we're talking polar bears today...

I just found this funny video of Binky, the late star polar bear at the Anchorage, AK zoo, munching an Australian tourist a few years ago. Moron extraordinaire Kathryn Warburton (you just know if she was American she'd be a Democrat)was dumb enough to climb over the barriers and go right up to him, no doubt thinking that the massive marine predator was as soft and cuddly as he looked. While this video may shock some, I have to think that it's a funny example of Darwin in action. Pity Binky couldn't get her all the way into the cage...

Binky dines on tourist

She's lucky to be alive, and because of her and other dummies the Anchorage Zoo bears now live behind glass.


And here's a newspaper photo of Binky with his new Australian-flavored shoe, which he kept as a trophy. She got away but Binky kept the Nike:

Damn--those polar bears will eat anything! (Maybe it was a communist polar bear...)

Bear Attacks Sub

During the ICEX 2003 naval exercises near the North Pole, the American submarine Connecticut (SSN 22) poked its sail and rudder through the ice. The sub surfaced in an area of polar ice between Alaska and the North Pole Subs in the arctic have long ago learned to look out for polar bears, especially if some of the crew are allowed out on the ice. In this case, a large (700-800) pound polar bear was seen approaching the sub. For about 40 minutes, the bear loitered around the subs rear rudder. It took a bite out of the rudder and, finding it inedible, stayed around the area of broken ice around the rudder for a while, apparently thinking a seal (the bears favorite food) might use it as an air hole. The bear finally left when he heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. When an officer first looked around outside via the periscope, he noted that his sub was being stalked by a hostile polar bear. The periscope cam was turned on, and these photos of a polar bear chewing on the subs rear rudder resulted. The damage was said to be minor. The SSN 22 is a Seawolf class boat, one of the navy's newest submarines. It wasn't designed as a polar bear snack, but that's how life is sometimes.




There are over 20,000 polar bears living in Arctic waters (although some live in Hudson's bay and down the Pacific coast of Alaska.) The bears normally live on pack ice or ice flows and prey on seals. Some come ashore during July and August, when offshore ice melts. There they live off their fat, or dead sea life that washes ashore. Some have been seen as far north as the North Pole, but there's little food for them up there.

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