Day 5

Wednesday,
March 7, 2001

Last night I almost had a real bad accident. I was lying in my sleeping bag snug and warm knowing I had to get up and put my cold clothes on and go outside and use the bathroom. I was so snug and warm in the sleeping bag that I was going to try to wait until morning. However, a little while later I woke up again and I had to go -- there was no question about it. I put my cold clothes on, got to the zipper of the tent and found it was frozen shut! I could not get the zipper open. I believe it was from all the steam from boiling our Freddy Chef dinners. There I was trying to thaw the zipper and I started to do an uncontrollable war dance. I went into a panic. I didn't know what to do. I reached over and grabbed the garbage bag and inside of it there was a Pringles potato chip container -- luckily for me.

Yer'n Trouble

I almost didn't make it. I couldn't believe it. My hat's off to the Pringles people for making a watertight potato chip container. I thought about leaving the zipper frozen shut to pull a dirty trick on my guides, but I'm sleeping just a little bit too close to the tent door for that one. Being out on the ice is a whole new learning experience. It took me about 15 minutes to get the zipper thawed by pressing my hands against it.

Well everything on this hunt goes in slow motion. It's very different from the fast-paced lifestyle back home. It's just cold and takes us a very long time to get rolling in the morning. Today I got up, climbed a high pressure ridge, and glassed for a couple of hours. Then while they were taking the tent down, I practiced shooting my bow out to 40 yards. Phil, my guide, was watching me shoot. I took some tea bags and licked them and stuck them to the side of my Block target. They stuck there just like they were glued because of the extreme cold. Phil thought I was just aiming at the whole target at first and when he saw me hit the tea bags, he was very impressed and said that my bow was more accurate than a gun. I told him I would like to be about 20 yards from the bear when I shoot it although I was confident at 40 yards and I had no problem with my accuracy at that range.

Archery Class

Tea Time

It's another day riding on the sleds and we stop about once every hour or so to have tea and banyo bread to keep our energy up. You can't believe the difference in how you physically feel after you've had something to eat. Normally as soon as we would stop, they would scoop up some snow and start boiling water. They would boil enough water at one time to keep in a thermos for the next stop or two, depending on whether or not we have Itchy bond noodles. They come pre-cooked in a styrofoam cup. You just add
boiling water to heat them up. They actually taste great!

Whenever we stop, I usually take my Swarovski's and start glassing for bears. I'm amazed at how well they are holding up. I keep them outside in the subzero temperatures and don't bring them into the tent. I don't want to worry about them fogging up.

During one of our breaks today when I was glassing, I couldn't believe my eyes. There just a little ways from us, maybe 100 yards or so, was a bear standing and looking towards us. I waved for David and Phil to come up by me and asked them what they thought. They said he was about a 7-1/2' bear so I decided to pass him up as I was looking for an 8 footer or better. It's still early in the hunt too.

The frostbite on David's face has turned completely black, but it doesn't seem to bother him too much. I don't know if they're use to it or not. I got thrown off the sled twice today and David laughed when he came over to help pick me up out of the snow. I'm glad I didn't land on any ice chunks. If I break something, my hunt is over.

Rough Ice

We're heading to Garrett Island, but the ice is so rough that we have to take a round about way to get there. The reason we're going there is because of a large crack in the ice where the bears are hunting the seals. The seals make dens in the pressure ridges along the crack in the ice where the pups can actually be out of the water without being exposed to the outside. The bears tunnel their way in to get at the pups.

We came across the tail end of the crack in the ice today. These cracks sometimes go for many miles in a jagged pattern. So far we've found two areas where the seals were yanked out by the bears. There were no remains of the seals, but there was blood everywhere. There were also several sets of arctic fox tracks. I believe they are scavengers and eat whatever the bears leave behind. The bear tracks look very fresh because you can still actually see ice crystals in the footprints from where their feet were
still wet from grabbing for seals. I can press my mukluk into the mushy ice. It looks like the ice on a snow cone. I can't believe it's not frozen solid, but that's where the seals are. They come up into these cracks to breath air. The bears use their great sense of smell to find where the seals are coming up and then they just wait for them. This is also how the Inuits hunt for the seals. Once they find a spot where the seals are coming up for air, they just stand there over the crack in the ice and harvest them when they come up.

We got on a track that my guides figured to be about a 9-1/2' bear. We followed him for about three hours, until it got too late. We set up camp about 200 yards down wind from the crack. My GPS coordinates are 745223 N 980738 W. We are able to communicate with the other camps with a short-wave radio. So far, two hunters have taken bears that were around 9'. One of the hunters was Joe Cocozzo. Luckily for him, he gets to go back to a nice warm, comfortable motel where he can sleep on a real bed and not have to eat meals out of a bag with caribou hair in everything! I'm optimistic about my hunt and very happy for Joe.

Where's Wal-Mart?

Here's a funny thought. I'm hoping that somebody goes to Wal-Mart and picks up some more candy bars and hot packs and drop-ships them here for me. That's the real reason why I'm giving my GPS coordinates.

I think my chances of seeing a bear tonight are pretty good. There are big bear tracks along the crack that we've been following that are beaten right down. Several bears are working the area so our hopes are up that we'll see a big bear tomorrow.