Bearly believable

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/08/2010 (5734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you go out in Shamattawa’s woods today, you might get a big, white surprise.

Even though the northern First Nation is far south of the shores of Hudson Bay where they normally roam, one polar bear has decided that’s where to picnic.

On Sunday evening, children playing near Gods River on the reserve were shocked to discover a polar bear taking a dip in the river, which flows past the isolated First Nation community of about 1,000 people.

But the surprise soon turned to delight after the kids ran to tell a neighbour about the news, and the neighbour quickly called RCMP. For the rest of the evening, RCMP officers and about 50 kids, parents and elders followed along the shore, watching the bear make its journey down the river.

"This was something spectacular for everybody," Shamattawa RCMP Sgt. Noel Allard said on Monday. "They were all happy that he was swimming before their eyes."

Police did dash out in a boat to make sure the bear stayed away from the town. But the bear — described by RCMP as a "good-sized" youngster — kept to his own side of the river, didn’t cause any trouble, and eventually ambled off into the night.

Polar bear sightings are almost unheard of in Shamattawa, which is located about 750 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg and is only accessible by plane or ice road. The area is well south of the tree line, and about 150 kilometres from the shore of Hudson Bay, where the bears normally live. The bear’s white coat stood in sharp contrast to the green brush around it.

There was one unconfirmed report of a polar bear a number of years ago, Allard said, but even town elders couldn’t remember a time when a polar bear had visibly shambled about Shamattawa’s borders.

A senior wildlife official was not shocked by the unusual sighting, and said the bear was probably a young male with a bit of teenage wanderlust.

"They do a lot of wandering, those type of bears at that type of age class, and sometimes they get themselves into trouble," said Daryll Hedman, a regional wildlife manager with the province based in Thompson. "I’m guessing that that fellow might have ventured right up the Hayes (River) and then the Gods River, right into the community."

Hedman predicts the bear will eventually make its way back to Hudson Bay over the next month or so, and wait for the bay to freeze up so it can start hunting seals on the ice.

There are about 109 polar bears in the area between York Factory, where this bear likely started his journey, and the Ontario boundary, Hedman said. Many more are further north near Churchill and into Nunavut.

 

— with files from The Canadian Press

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca