DATELINE.
POLAR PATROL
REPORTER:
Aaron Thomas and Aaron Lewis
Flying is the only way to reach the remote town of Arviat. Once you're there, the sub-arctic landscape turns out to be as hauntingly beautiful as it is achingly cold. Living here has many challenges, as Lorraine Okatsiak knows well. She and her husband are raising 6 energetic kids inside their small house.
REPORTER: So you don't let them play outside too much?
LORRAINE OKATSIAK, MOTHER: No, I try to let them stay in most of the time.
But it's not because of the cold. Inuit people have inhabited this land for more than 1,000 years, the real threat lurking outdoors is polar bears.
LORRAINE OKATSIAK: It's very scary to stay out in the polar bear season and I try not to take my kids anywhere, that's not safe.
This is a growing problem for some communities near the Arctic Circle and it may be linked to climate change. I've come here to meet Lorraine's dad, who sounds like the Tundra's answer to Crocodile Dundee and hopefully I will even see a polar bear myself.
LEO IKHAKIK, POLAR BEAR MONITOR: My name is Leo Ikhakik and I’m from here from Arviat and I do the polar bear monitor here in Arviat.
REPORTER: Keeping the town safe?
LEO IKHAKIK: I try to keep everybody safe.
Leo has been Arviat's polar bear monitor for the past five years.
REPORTER: How often do you see bears around town at this time of year?
LEO IKHAKIK: Pretty much every day.
REPORTER: So what's in here?
LEO IKHAKIK: My personal, like, my rifle and gun and my work shotgun.
REPORTER: And this is your work shotgun?
LEO IKHAKIK: Yes. A 12 gauge.
REPORTER: What do you load that with?
LEO IKHAKIK: I load it with rubber bullets. When you're out there and sometimes the weather is going to get really cold and the rubber is going to get hard, and that's going to sting them and hopefully teach them a lesson.
Leo's job puts him at the front-line of the increasing interactions between polar bears and humans and over the years he's honed his tactics.
LEO IKHAKIK: This is called a starter pistol... This is making a really loud bang noise.
REPORTER: Is that enough to scare them away?
LEO IKHAKIK: Yes.
REPORTER: Do you have a gun with real bullets just in case?
LEO IKHAKIK: Yeah, and I also try to play it safe, but I if I have to come up to that, to defend myself, I will do it but so far... It's been good. I haven't had to put down, like a bear.
Aside from the danger of polar bear attacks, Leo's grandkids have a pretty normal Canadian upbringing.
REPORTER: What's today?
WHITNEY: Halloween.
REPORTER: What do you best about Halloween?
WHITNEY: Candies.
REPORTER: Good answer.
Of course, getting candy usually means trick or treating door to door. But Halloween falls at the peak of polar bear season. So to keep them safe from bears, Arviat's come up with a unique alternative and Lorraine and her family are off to join in, all of them piling into the local equivalent of the family minivan. Riding in a sled is a standard way to get around Arviat. There are about 2,500 people here and almost half of them are kids under 18. And this is Halloween Arviat-style, safely inside away from the polar bears.
CHILD: Happy Halloween.
REPORTER: Happy Halloween to you, too.
The town council has created a wonderland of childhood terrors, including this one who's a long way from home.
REPORTER: How many bags did you make?
WOMAN: 960.
REPORTER: Enough for all the kids in town?
WOMAN: I hope so.
The candy-fuelled fun isn't enough to make people forget about the real threat outside.
WOMAN 2: I worry about bears because there’s like 9 polar bears each night that comes into Arviat or around the community.
REPORTER: And they have good reason to be scared. This footage captures what an actual polar bear attack looks like. It happened in Russia. This woman survived, but another person was reportedly eaten alive. And these photos show victims of polar bear attacks in Canada, from a town next door to Arviat.
LEO IKHAKIK: I got to have fuel, I got to have fuel in my body.
In Leo's kitchen, he tells me why his town sees to so many bears at this time of year. They're on the move.
LEO IKHAKIK: When they migrate they go through here, right through our community and they just continue on. And they go north. So, yeah, they are heading north right along the coast and once the ice forms they can pretty much take the short cuts.
It's nearly time for Leo to start his afternoon patrol.
REPORTER: Some pretty serious overalls you've got there. It gets pretty cold out there I guess?
LEO IKHAKIK: Yes, it does.
REPORTER: How cold are we talking?
LEO IKHAKIK: Well, like right now I think it’s not super cold, but it's maybe minus 10 right now. But I know it's going to get colder. And this is the slug I was talking about. I always keep this in one of my pockets where I can usually grab it, load it and shoot. I'm always at risk being out there alone and I want to come home safely in one piece to my family, so I'm always prepared.
Leo's aim is protect the polar bears from people as much as people from the polar bears. Before he started patrolling, bears were being regularly killed in self-defence.
LEO IKHAKIK: Sometimes there were like maybe three, four or five or six different kills in a year. They're pretty smart especially the females with cubs, they're really, pretty dangerous. You got to really watch yourself, because once they get hold of you, you're history, so...
Leo starts the patrol by checking the outskirts of town where people keep their sled dogs and where bears like to sniff around for a meal.
LEO IKHAKIK: A couple of times they're going to kill a dog or two and injury a dog. This time of the day they will probably be sleeping out there and by the end of the day they're going to start moving.
As I see the town recede in the distance, I start to appreciate the subtle beauty of this landscape as well as its potential for cruelty. This icy environment is much more the polar bears' home than it is ours.
LEO IKHAKIK: When the weather changes from warm to cold, that's when they get active. Polar bear tracks.
REPORTER: Yeah?
LEO IKHAKIK: Going north. Probably we just missed it.
REPORTER: Can you tell how fresh that is?
LEO IKHAKIK: Those ones are pretty fresh. They're pretty fresh, fresh tracks.
It seems this bear has already moved on. Down at the edge of the Hudson Bay, the winter freeze-up has only just started.
LEO IKHAKIK: The ice hasn’t formed yet, so they follow the coast.
The arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else in the world, but solid sea ice is vital for the bears. They've been fasting all summer and they are now hungry to get out on the ice and hunt for their main food source, seals. But climate change may be disrupting that cycle.
LEO IKHAKIK: I've seen the difference if you compare to a few years back. In fall time, when it's supposed to be freezing up, and sometimes it looks like it's going the opposite way and feels like spring time.
When that happens, the bears are stuck, waiting at the shore line where Arviat sits.
REPORTER: Do they come into town more in those years?
LEO IKHAKIK: Yeah. In the late freeze up, yes they do, because the ice hasn't formed and they'll be right along the shore. So, yeah, you're going to see more bears.
Given the vast areas around town, Leo doesn't just rely on patrols to manage the bears.
REPORTER: So what is this?
LEO IKHAKIK: This is our lucky bear trap. Last year we caught 14 polar bears.
REPORTER: How does it work?
LEO IKHAKIK: First we put bait by the front entrance here. Just small little size, but that’s the main bait it’s right on the trigger. Once they bite and pull, there’s a pin right here, it will go off like that and it will close the door.
This bear has been captured in the neighbouring town of Churchhill, 250km south of Arviat. Churchill has a holding facility for problem bears. Here they are tranquilised, marked with a green dye and then airlifted out of town. The problem is they're dropped away from Churchill but closer to Arviat, where some of these green spot bears later turn up on Leo's patch. Back in town Leo takes a well-earned break from patrolling. For years he was the only monitor, but now he gets help from the province's wildlife officers and the workplace gossip in their native Inuktitut is pretty special.
JOE SAVIKATAAQ JR (Translation): This is his fifth time going to the trap.
LEO IKHAKIK (Translation): The mother bear now knows that her cubs are playing like how little children play. The go inside the trap and come out.
Polar bears are a fascination that everyone here shares and I'm still eager to see one. It turns out that making their peace with bears is just one of the ways locals have adapted to life in the Arctic extremes. The basics in the local store include a full range of furs to trim your Parkas. Underground water mains are not an option here, so water and sewerage trucks visit every house every day to pump water in and out.
MAN: Leo Ikhakik is working night shifts, all night.
REPORTER: Does he do a good job?
MAN: Yeah. He is a good man.
And then there's Arviat's strange understanding of a beach holiday.
SHELAGH CROOKES, HOTEL MANAGER: So this is the beach house. This is the common kitchen, the common living area, and as you look out the window, that's Hudson Bay. In the winter people turn the couch around and they watch the polar bears, cause they're all out here in the winter time. Polar bears are amazing, they're just beautiful creatures.
Shelagh Crookes is the local hotel manager, she reckons I'll see a bear if I take a trip with her to the town dump.
REPORTER: So a lot of the townspeople come out to the dump as an easy viewing spot?
SHELAGH CROOKES: They do actually.
It turns out that watching the bears at the dump from the safety of the cars, is a local entertainment. But as night falls I still haven't seen one.
SHELAGH CROOKES: Good and bad that we don't see them right, because technically we don't want them in town. So it's good they're not out here.
REPORTER: It’s a complicated sort of relationship, because we do really want to see them.
SHELAGH CROOKES: That's true. They're the largest land carnivore in the world, you know, so it’s...
REPORTER: And yet somehow they come off as cuddly.
SHELAGH CROOKES: Yeah.
We're about to give up when there is a movement in the distance.
SHELAGH CROOKES: Oh, there's one. There's one darling. We're going to pull in. I see it. It's by the fence.
It's a youngish bear. Not a cub, but still only a few years old. I'm excited to be seeing one, but the fact that it's in a dump is a painful reminder of the impact of humans even in this remote place.
SHELAGH CROOKES: Oh they're going to bring him towards us.
REPORTER: I didn't realise we were going to be quite this close.
Polar bears are stealth hunters with keen noses, so the scent of the dump attracts them from far across the tundra. Bears find plenty to eat here, although their primary diet is seals, polar bears can eat anything from caribou to ducks, berries, seaweed and humans. Despite that, one local steps out to take a photo.
SHELAGH CROOKES: Oh! Yeah, OK.
Unfussed the bear eventually wanders off into the night.
LEO IKHAKIK: Bye.
It's my last night in Arviat, Leo's wife Doreen and a friend are settling down to bingo, which is played over the town's radio to save going outside. But while everyone else relaxes, for Leo it's time to get back to work.
REPORTER: Where are we going first?
LEO IKHAKIK: We're going to go check the bear trap, down towards the dump. We will check the other one.
In the driving snow, we come across a family heading home. Apparently a hunter has killed a polar bear, so we go to take a look. Canada allows Inuit communities to continue their traditional hunting of polar bears, but the quotas are small. Arviat is allows eight bear kills per year, but I wasn't expecting to see one of them myself.
LEO IKHAKIK: A big male.
REPORTER: How can you tell it's a male?
LEO IKHAKIK: Look at the size of the hind quarters and the neck. That's the neck right there.
As a city-born outsider, it's a little shocking to see a polar bear reduced to a hunk of meat and a hide. But Inuit people have been hunting bears for centuries and a fur can fetch up to $10,000.
LEO IKHAKIK: They can either sell it or make clothing out of it, like wind-pants. They can make mitts.
REPORTER: Is it soft?
LEO IKHAKIK: Yeah.
In the light of day, hunting gives way to science. Bears that are killed provide useful information for researchers although it's not a pretty sight.
REPORTER: About how old would this one be?
JOE SAVIKATAAQ JR: That one would be about 6, 7 years old.
Joe Saviktataaq Jr is one of Leo's co-workers. He collects samples from every harvested bear and sends it off for testing to monitor the health of the population. As far as scientists can tell, bear numbers are on a slight decline but Leo at least is hopeful that they will survive a changing climate.
LEO IKHAKIK: Without ice, they're not going to die or starve to death. They can still snatch a seal right in the open water.
As winter starts to set in, Leo's job is almost done for the year. The sea ice is really starting to solidify and the bears are heading miles from land to hunt for seals.
REPORTER: Anything out there?
LEO IKHAKIK: Can't see any bears.
Arviat has got through another autumn without harm and with only minimal interruption from bears. On my last day here it's already minus 41% with the wind-chill. In a few months' time, the bears will return from their winter haunts, but Leo Ikhakik will be ready and waiting for them.
REPORTER: Do you like your job?
LEO IKHAKIK: Yes. Pretty much, it's a good and scary job, but I like doing it. I really like my job.
REPORTER: Do you think you'll keep doing it for a while?
LEO IKHAKIK: As long as they want me, yeah, I'll do it.
Reporter
AARON THOMAS
Story Producer
AARON LEWIS
Camera and Editor
AARON THOMAS
Music Composer
VICKI HANSEN
Bear Holding Facility footage courtesy Manitoba Govt.
Translations
LIZZIE IBLAUK
Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
DAVID POTTS
RYAN WALSH
16th February 2016