Kangiqsujuaq faces polar bear scare

Last Thursday evening in Kangiqsujuaq, passersby spotted a female polar bear with her two cubs near the community arena where kids were playing hockey.

Word spread “like a grass fire,” said Bernie Adams, who decided to take his children to see the polar bears.

Curtis Groom, manager of the Northern Store in Kangiqsujuaq, also hopped into his truck and drove up to the arena.

“I met my first Kangiqsujuaq traffic jam. There were about 50 vehicles of all sorts gathered along the road scanning the cliff side with spotlights. After a couple of minutes everyone seemed to know something and headed up the road towards the airport, so I followed. Everyone drove onto the runway and so did I. I caught a glimpse of a bear crossing over a snowdrift about 50 yards away,” Groom said on his blog.

Shortly thereafter, hunters shot the polar bears to protect residents.

But some in Kangiqsujuaq thought the polar bears should have been allowed to continue on their way as long as they left town, as was the case a couple of years ago when a polar bear wandered through the community and headed out over the hills.

However, others felt the polar bears shouldn’t be near town at this time of the year, particularly near a place where kids play.

Nuisance polar bears can be a huge problem in regions with a large population of polar bears, as is the case in the Hudson Strait, which is included in the Davis Strait zone, where a survey recently found population numbers have increased.

Polar bears living near settlements can develop an appetite for human beings, particularly when they’re hungry. A group of starving polar bears terrorized local reindeer hunters and herders in Yakutia, Siberia a couple of years ago.

And, since 1973, five people have been killed by bears in the Svalbard Islands off Norway’s High Arctic, and no one sets foot outside without a rifle. In fact, in winter, everyone leaves house doors unlocked, in case somebody is surprised by a polar bear and needs to seek shelter.

Closer to home, a hungry female polar bear tried to ram her way into a cabin near Kuujjuaq three years ago.

Only last February, Lydia Angyiou of Ivujivik tackled a male polar bear poised to attack her son near that community’s arena. The polar bear was found later to be in poor condition, with an empty stomach.

This wasn’t the case with the female bear recently shot in Kangiqsujuaq who apparently had several centimetres of fat.

The bear meat was shared with community members, with the furs going to the hunters.

Although Adams’ kids didn’t get to see the live polar bears, they watched the butchering process with interest.

“And my wife and my youngest child had some polar bear,” Adams said.