A Captivating Creature
It’s just before dawn. The world is dark and quiet. A wild polar bear is sleeping soundly on the ice. His ears perk up, listening to the wind whistling across the tundra. Then, the sun breaks over the horizon and the ice is lit, sparkling like diamonds. The sky is crystal blue, flecked with gold and pink wisps of clouds. The beauty, peace, and wonder of the Arctic becomes alive, as the polar bear yawns and begins a new day.
I wrote the paragraph above as the opening for a high school Speech and Debate piece I used in competition four years ago. Back then, I hadn’t had the opportunity to see a polar bear surrounded by ice and snow. When I attended PBI’s Leadership Camp in the beginning of October, the ground was colorful and beautiful, but totally iceless.
This time around, the world of the polar bear was primarily one color: white. And that first paragraph I wrote? Now I’ve seen that image with my own eyes. There’s one downside to visiting Churchill in the winter, however: the super cold temperatures increase the chances of a person getting sick, especially when that person has a weak immune system. Case in point: myself. I caught a nice little head cold during the last couple days of our trip, which has made my return home a bit more stressful, and uncomfortable. I spent the majority of yesterday sleeping, and I desperately need to buy more tissues.
Despite this, I wouldn’t trade that opportunity for anything in the world. Since my first return from the Polar Bear Capitol of the World, I dreamed of one day going back and seeing the bears in the icy habitat they’ve adapted to live in so perfectly. That dream became a reality one week ago, but that reality now feels like a dream once more.
Do you ever have that feeling when you travel? Time flies by so quickly that, once you’ve returned to your “real world,” it seems as though you had never left? And yet, you know in your heart that you did leave, that you have changed, even as you fall back into your regular routine. The memories, the captured images, the video footage: all serve as reminders of the things you saw and did and learned.
A male polar bear pads softly across the sparkling snow, eyes closed against the bright sunlight. A female snuffles and snorts below my feet, investigating the curious two-legged creatures above her. A bear leans against the buggy, turns its head towards mine, and stares into my eyes. Three deeply moving connections — three brief, intense moments in time — and they were worth every tissue I am now tossing into the garbage and each headache that pounds my head.
Italian writer Cesare Pavese once said, “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”
That is the beauty of Churchill, of the Arctic, of the polar bear. It is a world unto itself that the rest of the planet depends upon for the security of a stable climate. What can compare to that raw beauty, that powerful wildness, that captivating creature that represents an entire environment and way of life — those essential things that take us back to the very core of humanity and life here on Earth? Very little, I’m convinced.
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