Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jul 10/98) - Patrick Kaludjak never expected to find a polar bear outside his tent one morning while walrus hunting recently on Marble Island, some 50 kilometres east of Rankin Inlet.

Kaludjak and his brother, Peter, had been camping on the quartzite island when they crossed paths with the first of five polar bears they would see near the community in the last couple of weeks.

"Yeah I was surprised -- it was eating a seal on the ice and we were just watching it eat," said Kaludjak, who was first to spot the bear as he was getting out of the tent the first day of their trip.

Standing seven-feet tall, the bear was small compared with the one they would see later in the afternoon. It was 11-feet tall. Kaludjak's younger brother, Peter, said that they weren't scared of the bears at all. "I'm not really scared of them for some reason," he said. "This time of year, we keep our gun next to our beds in case a bear comes ... (but) this one wasn't bothering us."

"They're harmless -- they're not like black bears or grizzlies," he added.

On their way back to Rankin Inlet June 21, the pair saw two more bears near the floe edge, less than five kilometres east of the community. And then three days later, they spotted a fifth bear even closer to the hamlet.

This bear, they believe, is a cub separated from its mother who probably won't survive without her.

Polar bears often travel close to Rankin on their way North in the summer, but to see so many, the brothers agreed, is rare.

"There's usually one or two bears we see down there every year ... but I've never seen so many around Rankin," said Peter Kaludjak, who wished he'd had a camera.

While they saw an unusual number of polar bears for the area, the brothers didn't spot a walrus and plan to go hunting again soon for the giant-tusked animals.