Denouement

"'Boxing is the science of controlling fear; it's not a perfect science, alas, but I'm going to show you how to control fear. Let's go. Put your hands up. Set yourself up. Your feet are too close together. Okay, that's better. Now pop a jab. Stick and move, baby. Get your elbows in. Jab. Everything works off your jab, remember that. C'mon, jab—snap it. Keep your chin down, you're holding your head too high. That's better. Jab. C'mon, jab. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's only a fight. It's only a fight.'" —Thom Jones from “The Pugilist at Rest”

I cried with the others. I cried because they were crying and I'd have to be an asshole not to. I also cried because we shot the bear. The hunters are gone. There were two. They left within an hour of performing the act on our behalf. They were respectful and concerned. And they made it clear to me that they did not consider this hunting, that this was not an act they valued, nor something they do regularly. I was with them when they took the bear and verified the death after, sort of an international agreement between hunters. Some days after they left, they got hold of my boss and asked for my contact information. We'd spoken before they took the bear. I stood near them. Felt like a member of the group. Theirs and ours. One of the hunters was proud of the river he had on his property. He asked if I fished as well as hunted. I said yes and he invited me to visit. We talked about Poland. I told him I hunted with my father-in-law there. He said he enjoyed hunting in Poland as well. I have not contacted them yet. I'm uncertain what to write. But I hope someday to visit.

There is a rifle on station now and I'm okay with that fact. I've been around firearms most of my life now and am comfortable with them. I hunt with them and with my bow. I understand their utility and condemn their misuse. While I've accepted these new procedures on station, I confess that I'm still unsure we should have killed the bear.

We were rereading the “Polar Bear Interaction Plan” in the carpenters' shop the other day. It states that one should, “[n]ever run from a bear, as running can trigger the animal’s prey response. Experts also believe that if attacked, you should always fight back with a polar bear no matter its behavior.”

“I ran,” I said as if to prove this suggestion wrong. “No, you didn't,” said one of my colleagues.

Contrary to what I wrote in the aftermath of my brief encounter with the bear, and contrary to my memory of the events, I did not rip open the tarp and bolt from the tent when ordered to do so. I remember running, and I did eventually, but not at first. Now, I didn't get the sense that my colleague was accusing me of lying, but rather correcting my memory of the events. There was no malice in his tone. In fact, there was a kind of despair in his notation that may have mirrored the despair felt by any of them who wanted me to escape but were almost resigned to the idea that I would not. The fact of the matter is, and I entirely believe him, I didn't immediately run. That must have been frustrating to some of them.

Apparently, I took some cautious steps and it appeared to most or all that I was going to casually walk to safety. I'd like to imagine that this was because somewhere in my brain I remembered the caution listed in the plan, that I knew not to run. When I arrived on station, I read and signed off on this plan, as a matter of course. I want it to be true that I was calm in the face of imminent danger because I had internalized this order. In reality, I suspect it was merely the fact that I did not feel like prey. I've been around wild animals before, many times whilst hunting. I suspect that I knew somehow that she was merely curious, not threatened. Therefore, I was not threatened. But this was not a conscious thought. At least, not one that I remember.

I have been in many fights over the years and felt anger and fear in most. My success or failure during these encounters always depended on my ability to rule that anger or fear. I have lost as many fights as I have won. That is telling and perhaps generous. In the tent, when I could not see her approach, only hear, I was less afraid. More calm. Pragmatic. There was no survival instinct, which is vaguely disturbing now. Rather than struggling to control some growing fear or anxiety, I was simply narrating. Where should I stab her? This seems like an ineffective way to hold my blade. Maybe this way? I love my wife. So this is how it ends? But I've written this already.

And my aim was to kill the bear, rather than deter or drive her off. That is also interesting to me. Was it wrong of me that this was something that seemed a certainty, that I thought of no other immediate alternative? I've never been too shrewd, I don't think. This was no exception. My declaration in the tent of “Fight. Fight. Fight,” which was only my mind shouting at my mind, was actually more of an entreaty than anything else.

The bear is dead. She's buried near the station. The location is unmarked. Very few know where the spot is, and I think this is a good and considerate thing. What follows here is not an attempt to place blame. Please, keep that in mind as you read. I don't blame anybody for our peril, just as I don't blame the bear, just as I hope I am not blamed for being a heavy sleeper that morning. My statements here could jam me up. I'm quite aware. My opinion, while I suspect might meet with the approval of a good number of my fellows on station, may not be popular with either my company or my government. But this is my writing and I won't have my expression restricted. I hope they don't send me home for holding an unpopular opinion. I have a lot more work to do for my friends here.

I sincerely believe there should have been better plans in place to react to a bear incursion, even if those plans were only for camps or stations closest to the coast, but something flexible that might have been adjusted or augmented to address the eventuality of a bear at Summit Camp. Those plans should have involved the safe and nonlethal removal and relocation of the bear. Moving forward, I think those plans should emphasize this idea of a nonlethal removal.

It is fairly easy for me to write that now. Admittedly, I was torn at the time as to whether or not we should put down the bear. Hell, I'm still torn. I understand the reason we did. I also understand and value the reasons we should not. Frankly, I'd have done it myself if put in the same circumstances with the same options at hand. And I am glad there is a rifle on station. I came to work here under the assumption that the likelihood of a bear at the summit of the Greenland ice sheet was extremely low. My betters sent me here, secure in the same assumption. Again, I don't blame them for how this all turned out. And I understand logistics. I understand the difficulty of removing and relocating a live bear. But, if we consider ourselves moral creatures, wardens of this environment, this planet, then considerations of expense, overreaching bureaucratic nonsense, and logistical difficulty should not deter us in our faithfulness to those responsibilities associated.

Bureaucracy is not people, but human systems. Like any system, it might be flawed, might be inefficient, or might be valuable. The gears of bureaucracy don't care for one's humanity, don't care for real morality, only for the appearance of morality, and only for the dollars and cents of that apparent morality. The people who function within these bureaucracies, within these laws, this means all of us, might care. One would hope that people care. But caring people are ruled by and frequently coerced into submission by those uncaring systems that shepherd us.

A person is naturally concerned for his livelihood, for her life. I do not condemn anyone outright for that concern, for wanting to live, to afford health care, to pay rent, raise a family, find security and happiness. Mine and my wife's lives are more important to me than you or yours. Difficult to think about. Less difficult to write. These laws and rules and dictates that constrain our actions, that some of us adhere to as if etched in stone tablets by the æthereal hand of some æthereal god, are pointless if they serve only to betray our moral responsibility to each other and our planet, or worse, threaten our very existence. It is our own fault for continuing to labor beneath them. It is our fault for accepting them and their restraints. That said, I suggest, and I am certainly not the first to suggest this, that any system that does more immediate harm than good needs more immediate attention and likely more immediate redress. I am a simple person, so it is fairly simple math.

I will always believe in math, logic, love, and science. Although I would never claim to have anything figured out, I still have faith in good math. I even have faith in bad math. I should include here the fact that any number beyond ten requires fingers I don't have enough of to count. That is, I am quite bad at real math. My wife asked me the other day if I remember how to deal with polynomials. She's studying algebra, among other things. I told her I didn't even remember what a polynomial was and had to be reminded. So, one can imagine that a guy like me likes to keep things simple. The world is complex enough.

My math: a house can be built better with two sets of hands than with one, a crop brought in easier by more farmers, your life and my life are of equal value, a second set of eyes is always a good thing, and I need your help to carry this burden. A lifetime spent in an effort to support and defend the cause of humanity cannot be a wasted life. Many hands make light work. Love and logic are more constructive than hate, and anger, and fear. One is divisible. One might be divided infinitely and infinitesimally, necessarily or unnecessarily. Selfishness is counterproductive and bad math. And finally, we need to have a good plan in place to remove and relocate a polar bear if it happens to wander into one of our numerous science stations. Because if we were not here, the bear would have continued on in search of food, might never have ventured beyond the coast to begin with. She might have died in the cold, of the cold, or of hunger, or maybe loneliness. She could have traveled on, survived, perhaps reached the opposite coast, and continued, had it not been for us. I apologize for these ramblings, for drifting into the political and sloppy poetic, but not for my opinion on this subject. Also, this is the last time I will write here about the bear.

“Came to understand one can get used to anything, and become a stranger to nothing. Saw that betrayal is just another word for loss, for hunger.” —Raymond Carver, from “Limits”