In a warming Arctic, Inuit bear guards protect communities

Derrick Pottle, an elder from Tikigâksuagusik in Nunatsiavut, founded BearSafe Planning in 2005 to train and certify bear guards across northern Labrador; the three-day course now responds to a changing Arctic where polar bears are showing up in new places and staying longer on land. Canadian officials link the shift to a lengthening ice-free season, changes in bear abundance, and growing human activity in bear habitat, with the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet.

Graduates learn to spot signs a bear feels threatened or is preparing to charge, and the training serves everyone from personal land-users to professional guides hired by cruise operators and national parks. Sherri Wolfrey, a mother of four from the same community, trained in 2015 and later worked professionally as a guard in Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve.

Sixty to 80 percent of the world's polar bear population lives in Canada, and the federal government lists the species as of 'special concern' while the province calls it 'vulnerable.' Pottle says the course has become steadily more in demand as encounters increase, and frames bear guarding as a legitimate employment path in a region where jobs can be scarce.

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