Wes Werbowy, 67, a longtime wilderness consultant, had a close bear encounter while he was camping on July 16 near Whale Cove, Nunavut, where he was training three Inuit hunters to be eco-tour guides.
The campers were about 48 kilometres inland from Whale Cove. Werbowy said they had set up separate sleeping and cooking tents in order to minimize the risk of a bear coming close. But that did not deter a large male polar bear from approaching Werbowy's tent just after 3 a.m., while he was tucked into his sleeping bag."I heard the scenting sound of a bear, and it's sort of ... inhaling, trying to get the scent of his supper," said Werbowy, making a deep snorting sound to imitate the bear's sound.
"The bear was like an apparition," he said. "There was no beginning of the movement; there was no subtlety. It was 'Vroomp!' [and] he was there."The front of my tent is collapsed inward, and his nose is about two feet from my face." If Werbowy's situation was not already dire enough, he said the polar bear was standing on his firearm, which he had left at the front of his now-collapsed tent.
So Werbowy said he did what an Inuit elder once told him to do: punch the polar bear in the nose.
"I quite believed it's going to be the last thing I ever did, so I might as well do a good job," he said. "The bear vanished as rapidly as he appeared." Punching the bear's nose felt like punching a slab of hamburger meat, Werbowy recalled.
As for Werbowy, he said every day since that fateful punch has felt like a blessing.
"I do not have a scratch, and the bear is alive. We didn't have to kill him," he said. "It was a win-win-win all the way around."
This sounds like a thoroughly Canadian approach to me! Well done Wes!
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/08/13/nunavut-polar-bear-punch.html#socialcomments-submit#ixzz0wWZRUhBO
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/08/13/nunavut-polar-bear-punch.html#socialcomments-submit#ixzz0wWYajHrX
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