ARVIAT
Polar bear sightings in Arviat over the past few weeks have the hamlet buzzing, especially after one bear gave chase to a group of children as they played outside.

More and more polar bears are being seen in the community of Arviat. One apparently hungry bear gave chase to a group of children recently. - NNSL file photo

"There was this close incident where the kids were playing in the playground just outside William Ollie's house," said Alex Ishalook, chairperson of the Arviat Hunters and Trappers Organization.

"Luckily Ollie noticed his dogs really barking and going crazy and he went out and checked outside and saw a polar bear getting in close to the two kids. He managed to get on his ATV and drive at the bear, chasing it away."

For Ishalook, it seems that there are more polar bears around Arviat every year. He said on July 17 that he had seen a bear just the night before after his sled dogs started barking frantically.

"So last night I couldn't get to sleep and kept getting up and checking out the window because there was one (polar bear) at 1 a.m. and the dogs were going crazy for a second at about 2:30," he recalled.

"Finally I went to bed around 3 a.m., around that time. Yesterday around 9:30 in the evening I got a phone call. I have mushing dogs and some guy called me and said there's a polar bear across the bay and that's where I keep my dogs. They said they could hear the dogs going crazy and so I went to go check and there's been polar bears around but there was one close by, but it wasn't doing anything other than walking along the beach."

Two weeks before that, Ishalook said, he saw three bears while on a boating trip just outside of Arviat.

"We have an island just outside of the town and we saw three big polar bears right there right away, one big male about 10 feet tall and a mother roughly seven feet

and a cub about maybe four feet long," he said.

"They were all big polar bears, and even the cub was also big. They were all nice and fat and healthy looking. Then we went to Rock Island and there was a different bear. There's been polar bears all around."

He said people in Arviat are keeping in close contact with each other, using radios or just calling to let their neighbours know when a polar bear is around the community. Dogs, he said, also work as a great alarm system to let people know the bears are near.

"The last few years we're starting to see more and more, it's becoming the last four or five years we're seeing more, and then each year another few more," Ishalook said. "I think their population is going up and increasing."

The increase in polar bears means hunters and those going out on the land for recreational purposes are having to be more careful.

"Where we go fishing along the coast, we used to go camp and spend weekends in the fishing grounds. Now it's unsafe. We need night watchmen to probably sleep and then we work in shifts of a few hours," he said. "That's our lifestyle now. If we want to go spend weekends we either bring a dog or someone to be a night watchman."

Ishalook also said he doesn't expect the increased sightings to stop anytime soon.

"This is becoming a polar bear capital, it's similar to Churchill now," Ishalook said. "So, like I said, there's more and more now every year and next year, I can't say for sure, but just guesstimating that we'll see more and more again."

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