FYI If you wanted to fight a bear what would be your strategy?

Back in the '80s, when we lived in Norway, my dad was an exploration geologist for big oil and went on multiple expeditions to Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic circle. Longyearbyen, their base of operations and also the largest city in Svalbard, located on the island of Spitsbergen, is 12 degrees from the North Pole to give you an idea of how far north it is. (You may know Svalbard as being the location of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the subterranean doomsday bunker which holds the seeds of numerous plants from around the world.)

Svalbard is heavily populated by polar bears and numerous denning areas. They are voracious carnivores, and while they are protected by law from hunting in Svalbard, you are encouraged to be armed at all times while on the islands and are permitted to shoot them in self defense.

Everyone in my dad's geological expeditions carried a minimum of .308, though many, including my dad, carried .375 H&H, which is a massive big game round favored for years by professional hunters. You don't have long to take down a polar bear when you need to, and you need something meaty to punch through not only the thick fur and blubber that insulates them but also the bones beneath.

Polar bears are both relentless and brave. On one expedition a lone bear stalked my dad's group for 14 miles before being scared off by warning shots. There is a large photograph of that bear in his office, standing on a rocky hillside above their camp, staring down at them. It's fairly rare to be attacked by one, but its determined behavior suggested something other than mere curiosity. He said it's a very creepy thing to be silently stalked by a massive predator.

On one of his expeditions an Oklahoman geologist was part of the group. The man brought his prized .44 Magnum handgun to protect him in his tent at night. One of the Norwegian guides at camp on the first night asked him what he intended to do with it if they were ever ambushed by a polar bear, and he responded with "Shoot him right in the eye." The guide sternly advised him to file off the barrel site before morning. When asked why, the guide replied "So it doesn't hurt as much when the bear sticks it up your ass."

:shifty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_(novel)
 
What if the bear could lure you into web traps?

Spiderbear.jpg
 
Back in the '80s, when we lived in Norway, my dad was an exploration geologist for big oil and went on multiple expeditions to Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic circle. Longyearbyen, their base of operations and also the largest city in Svalbard, located on the island of Spitsbergen, is 12 degrees from the North Pole to give you an idea of how far north it is. (You may know Svalbard as being the location of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the subterranean doomsday bunker which holds the seeds of numerous plants from around the world.)

Svalbard is heavily populated by polar bears and numerous denning areas. They are voracious carnivores, and while they are protected by law from hunting in Svalbard, you are encouraged to be armed at all times while on the islands and are permitted to shoot them in self defense.

Everyone in my dad's geological expeditions carried a minimum of .308, though many, including my dad, carried .375 H&H, which is a massive big game round favored for years by professional hunters. You don't have long to take down a polar bear when you need to, and you need something meaty to punch through not only the thick fur and blubber that insulates them but also the bones beneath.

Polar bears are both relentless and brave. On one expedition a lone bear stalked my dad's group for 14 miles before being scared off by warning shots. There is a large photograph of that bear in his office, standing on a rocky hillside above their camp, staring down at them. It's fairly rare to be attacked by one, but its determined behavior suggested something other than mere curiosity. He said it's a very creepy thing to be silently stalked by a massive predator.

On one of his expeditions an Oklahoman geologist was part of the group. The man brought his prized .44 Magnum handgun to protect him in his tent at night. One of the Norwegian guides at camp on the first night asked him what he intended to do with it if they were ever ambushed by a polar bear, and he responded with "Shoot him right in the eye." The guide sternly advised him to file off the barrel site before morning. When asked why, the guide replied "So it doesn't hurt as much when the bear sticks it up your ass."

When I was working for BP up in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, we were basically told there's nothing you can do to defend yourself from a polar bear except shoot it. Catch-22 is none of us could have guns, but they monitored the locations of most of the polar bears in the prudhoe area and only security where allowed to "harass the wildlife". If a duck wanted to cross the road we had to stop and wait, couldn't honk or anything to get it to move along... We were required to report any sightings of polar bears though. The security guys had names for a lot of the frequent runs they'd run across, but their range is ridiculous. If a polar bear was getting to people friendly they'd relocate it a few hundred miles away, but almost always they'd be back in a few weeks somehow. After that they'd be destroyed.

Only eskimos are allowed to hunt polar bears. Our safety instructor would always tell a story about a few animal activists who were watching a polar bear up in Barrow Alaska (northern most part of Alaska, one of only a few towns in the entire north half of Alaska which aren't owned and operated by the oil companies), when an eskimo pulled up on a snowmobile, jumped off, and killed it.

I carry a .357 snubnose (for lightweight) revolver when backpacking now in case i run into another black bear. It's a revolver caliber you can use to hunt deer with here, so I figure it must be decent against bears.