If it’s white and you are all alone without any vehicle or firearm … just cover yourself in barbecue sauce and give up

I have family who taught me about Polar Bears on the Hudson Bay coast in northern Ontario. I’ve been up there many times too. Polar bears are predators and if they figure out you are alone without a gun … they’ll hunt you down. A motivated polar bear is like a tractor … it’ll plow through small trees and brush to get to where its going. It’ll run far faster than you, even on uneven ground, mud or soft tundra. It’ll swim faster than you. If it can’t knock down the tree you’ve climbed, it’ll wait days for you to get down. Most hunters and trappers out there know that if you ever encounter a polar bear on your own and it won’t go away … you have to figure out how to kill it yourself … or it will eventually kill you.

I have one old family story of a young man that taunted a polar bear near their camp. This was probably a story that is over a hundred years old. He was young and basically showing off to his family about how brave he could be. He scared the bear with a gun, the bear ran because it knew it couldn’t fight a group with guns … the kid gave chase moving further and further away. Once the bear knew they were both far enough away, it turned and caught the young guy and killed him a flash. The family scared the bear away and went looking for the young man. They found him completely torn in two … his torso and head separated from his legs … they were all amazed at how fast it all happened. This was a story all us young kids were told to remind us never to lose our guard or play games with polar bears.