The war over the polar bear

Who’s telling the truth about the fate of a Canadian icon?
COLIN CAMPBELL AND KATE LUNAU | Jan 25, 2008 | 10:56 am EST
Also at Macleans.ca:
* How (not) to approach Arctic travel | In search of a polar bear story, Maclean’s reporter Colin Campbell took a last minute trip to Tuktoyaktuk
In the cold, dark days of January, when the sun peeks over the southern horizon for just an hour each afternoon, Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., is little more than a sprinkling of lights on the edge of the icy Beaufort Sea. But as remote as it is, events in the south loom large here. A daily inflow of news reports about polar bears and the deadly toll of global warming comes streaming via satellite dishes throughout this tiny community of 800 almost as steadily as the snow outside. “Just about every day you see something on TV about bears,” says Chucky Gruben, an Inuvialuit hunter, “so much of it is bulls–t.”
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