A drone’s-eye view: Polar bears walk the hills around Kimmirut

A Kimmirut man has captured a stunning series of pictures showing a trio of polar bears atop a hill overlooking the small hamlet of about 425 people.

Kevin Saimata Pitsiulak, a photographer and drone operator, said he heard polar bears had been spotted near the community at around 2 p.m. Sunday.

Soon after that, he had his drone — which has a range of 20 kilometres and can fly for 30 minutes — up in the air looking for the bears.

“There’s been few this past week,” he said via Facebook Messenger, of polar bear sightings in the area around the hamlet about 120 kilometres southwest of Iqaluit. “I’ve been seeing posts on Facebook, so I’ve been flying my drone.”

Working the drone from his home in Kimmirut on Sunday, he caught the still images and videos of the polar bear family at around 3:41 p.m. They were perched high up on the hill known as Muliuja, a little over 2.5 kilometres north of the hamlet.

“I was happy and excited at the same time when I found them,” Pitsiulak said.

In one photo, what appears to be a mother and her two cubs are clearly curious as to what could be hovering in the air so close to them.

People in the hamlet suspected the bears could have been drawn to the community by the smell of seal, Pitsiulak said. Community members have been hunting and boating nearly every day.

Pitsiulak said he flew is drone out to the area again Monday morning, but couldn’t find any trace of them.