{"id":31459,"date":"2020-06-19T00:05:31","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T07:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_quick&p=31459"},"modified":"2020-06-18T14:50:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T21:50:32","slug":"coastal-job-polar-bear-guard","status":"publish","type":"custom_quick","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/article-short\/coastal-job-polar-bear-guard\/","title":{"rendered":"Coastal Job: Polar Bear Guard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Some people work in cubicles, others work in kitchens, but the most intriguing workplace of all may be the coast. Meet the people who head to the ocean instead of the office in our Coastal Jobs<\/a> series.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Born and raised in Utqiagvik, Alaska, Michael Thomas is the field operations manager and a polar bear guard for UIC Commercial Services, an Alaska Native Corporation that provides support for local construction, shipping, and research. He specializes in protecting scientists from bears and from the extreme environment.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I\u2019m bear guarding, I\u2019m usually out on the sea ice, where -35 \u00b0C is a typical temperature in winter. Most people couldn\u2019t survive in -35 \u00b0C. The biggest part of the training was just growing up and being raised on the land, having that Indigenous knowledge. The other bear guards grew up here, too. There are four of us; we provide logistics for researchers studying things like coastal erosion and sea ice. They\u2019re only here in the Arctic for maybe two weeks out of a year\u2014or out of their whole lives\u2014and we make sure they\u2019re safe during their stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cBear guard\u201d is what they call it, but the job is so much more than that. The environment is often the biggest problem we contend with. Many of the scientists aren\u2019t used to the cold. They can tighten up and form \u201cT. rex<\/em> arms.\u201d When that happens, I\u2019ll hand them a shovel and tell them to dig in the snow until they loosen up. Once, when we had to work all day in -50 \u00b0C, one researcher came up with a dance\u2014kicking his legs like a jig\u2014to get the blood flowing.<\/p>\n

The researchers can sit there, bent over a piece of equipment, for hours, so my job is to watch for bears. I\u2019ll keep an eye around the vicinity, usually two or three football-field lengths away, scanning for movement. But if you try too hard to look for a bear, you\u2019re going to start seeing one. You\u2019ll start to believe that a piece of ice is moving out there, but really it\u2019s nothing. If you do see a bear coming in your direction, you get everyone on snowmobiles and drive to a safer area for a while. If the bear leaves, you go back to the site. But if it doesn\u2019t, you call it a day and head back to Utqiagvik.<\/p>\n

My most memorable encounter with a bear on patrol was when some researchers and I were hiking close to a lake. All of a sudden, we stumbled upon this giant bear sitting on the tundra. It looked lethargic, like it must have just eaten a big meal\u2014a baby caribou, maybe. We were able to move right past it, and as we did, it sat there, watching us.<\/p>\n

At work, I\u2019ve never had a bear act aggressively toward me or any researcher. I\u2019ve never had to fire any kind of deterrent\u2014and that\u2019s something I take pride in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people work in cubicles, others work in kitchens, but the most intriguing workplace of all may be the coast. Meet the people who head to the ocean instead of the office in our Coastal Jobs series. Born and raised <\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31460,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":null,"hero_video_caption":"","deck":"At the northernmost tip of Alaska, bear guarding is about more than just bears.","authors_group":[{"by_group":"As told to","contributors_group":[23402]}],"word_count_override":"","podbean1":"","podbean2":"","redirect":"","geolocation":{"address":"Utqiagvik, Alaska, USA","lat":71.29055559999999,"lng":-156.788611,"zoom":5,"place_id":"ChIJxW7gHwHYwlARUNjDCRKB1Lk","name":"Utqiagvik","city":"Utqiagvik","state":"Alaska","state_short":"AK","post_code":99723,"country":"United States","country_short":"US"},"related":[23681,26487],"twitterimage":31462,"facebookimage":31461,"twitterdescription":"","edited":"","factchecked":"","code":"","no_old_story_flag":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/31459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_quick"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/31459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31484,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/31459\/revisions\/31484"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/26487"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/23681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}