Day 9

Sunday,
March 11, 2001

It was pretty much the same routine today except for the mirages. We had what appeared to be in the distance, a wall of ice around us, making it seem as though we were standing in the middle of a gigantic arena. As I looked at the walls they seemed to somehow be out of focus, or blurry. I asked my guides what these were and they said it was the movement of the ice lifting up and down that created this mirage. Sometimes the mirage was a mile or so out and at other times it seemed to be only about 500 yards away. You'd be looking through your glasses and the ice would just start becoming a blur, almost like heat vapors rising off a road on a hot day which gave it the "wall" effect. That's quite a feeling to have, knowing you're on the ocean and the ice is moving underneath your feet! It made you feel like you wanted to run for safety, but there was nowhere to run.

We're traveling towards an area they call "Ice Mountain" looking for another crack. Ice Mountain was formed in an area where there is shallow water, possibly from a sunken island. It's about three stories high and it's made up of thousands of chunks of ice. We've come across several sets of tracks but none of them were of a good size bear. We saw a lot of sow and cub tracks. The cub tracks were very small, about the size of a large dog track.

As we approached Ice Mountain we stopped for a tea break. Phil spotted a bear on the ice with its head stuck in a crack waiting for a seal. Because it was lying flat on the rough ice, we couldn't tell if it was a boar or a sow or what size it was. It's yellow- colored fur made it look big to me. The wind was blowing hard in our direction, therefore, I believe the bear didn't hear or smell us. We decided to get a closer look.

Phil stayed back and waited with the second sled, just as we had planned since the first day of the hunt, so that there wouldn't be any added noise. I was hoping that this was the bear I'd been dreaming of! I told David and Phil that I had visions of stalking and harvesting the bear while his head was still in the ice, but David said, "no, we'll use the dogs." I learned a long time ago not to question your guide when he knows more about the type of animal you're hunting than you do. I couldn't believe the bear let us get as close as we did. When we were within 60 yards of it, it stood up and David said it was too small. It was only about 6-1/2 feet. Then it lumbered off in the opposite direction as if it was confused about what we were. We had a hard time controlling the dogs and keeping them from chasing after the bear. The bear periodically checked the wind and
tried to catch our scent as he disappeared behind the endless ice chunks.

Tonight we are camped next to Ice Mountain. I know the bear of my dreams is still out there. Hopefully we'll find him. Maybe tomorrow.