Serious Survival: How to Poo in the Arctic and Other essential tips for explorers. Bruce Parry
global warming is as great even in this southerly part of the Arctic. If confirmed, it’s more bad news for the future of the polar bear.
WHICH IS WORSE, to be too hot or too cold?
When you’re utterly frozen at –40°C (–40°F), a toasty jungle at plus 40°C (104°F) seems hugely appealing. But endure the reality of trekking in 90 per cent humidity with your clothes so full of sweat that you could wring them out, and suddenly you find yourself longing for that clean, cool Arctic air.
One Serious Arctic survival expert said he prefers the cold as he can always put on more clothes and jump around to get warm, whereas there’s little he can do to cool down if he gets too hot in the jungle. Logically it’s hard to argue with that, but many people seem able to acclimatise to the heat sooner or later, while they find it hard ever to relax completely in the cold.
The Arctic is home to a surprisingly wide range of animals, each ingeniously adapted to life in this hostile landscape. Some bugs and beasties can even tolerate being frozen solid, and the short summer brings out a wide variety of insects including mosquitoes.
POLAR BEAR
Found only in the Arctic, the majestic polar bear has become a symbol of the region – and of the effects of climate change. The endangered animal is an excellent swimmer, its relatively small head helping streamline it through the water.
Polar bears eat mainly seals and other marine mammals, and their hunting ground is at the edge of the frozen sea, or on smaller ice floes. While they sometimes stalk their prey on the sea ice, the cunning creatures will often wait patiently for a seal to pop its head up through an air hole in the ice, springing into action to drag it out of the water with its powerful paws.
Humans are their only predator, with hunting for sport and skins reducing numbers dramatically in the last century. Scientists estimate only around twenty-five thousand remain, and while hunting is now strictly controlled, the endangered bears face a new and critical threat from global warming. With the sea ice shrinking and melting earlier each year, polar bears are finding it ever harder to catch enough food to survive.
© Matthias Breiter/Minden Pictures/FLPA
With two layers of fur and a thick layer of blubber the polar bear is adapted perfectly to the frozen Arctic, losing almost no heat from its body.
ARCTIC FOX
This beautiful creature has the warmest fur of any mammal, and is the only fox to change colour with the seasons, making it extremely hard to spot. In winter its fur is almost pure white, turning brown in summer (another variety has a blue-grey coat in winter). Its short ears and legs also help minimise heat loss. The Arctic fox stays active all winter, feeding off small rodents like lemmings and voles. If they’re not available it will dig up food buried in more plentiful times, and will also scavenge leftovers from bear kills.
© Michael Gore/FLPA
The ‘snow white’ fur of the Arctic fox provides excellent camouflage.
CARIBOU
Caribou are the wild relative of the domesticated reindeer and have adapted to the extreme conditions by making extremely hardy plants, called lichens, the main part of their diet. These plants form a thin covering over rocks, and caribou will dig through the snow with their hooves to find them. They may migrate hundreds of miles, heading to the more southerly parts of the Arctic in winter in search of food.
© Jim Brandenburg/Minden Pictures/FLPA
MUSK OX
The huge musk ox has two coats to keep it warm, an underlayer of fine wool and a much longer, shaggy outer coat. The inner wool coat is far softer and warmer than wool and is often used by local people to weave scarves. Like caribou, musk oxen use their hooves to clear snow so they can graze on lichens and mosses.
© Jim Brandenburg/Minden Pictures/FLPA
BIRDS
Many birds visit the Arctic in summer, from snow geese to the amazing Arctic tern, the greatest traveller in the animal kingdom. This relatively small bird is only around 30cm (12in) long, but travels around 40,000km (25,000 miles) each year, migrating from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again. In this way it spends summer in each polar region, experiencing almost constant daylight.
© David Hosking/FLPA
SEA MAMMALS
The icy Arctic waters are home to many species of seal, including the polar bear’s favourite, the ringed seal. All sea mammals need to surface to breathe, and the ringed seal is able to live under vast areas of frozen ocean by using its sharp claws to cut breathing holes in the ice, which may be several metres thick. This is occasionally its undoing, as it may pop its head up only to find a hungry polar bear lying in wait.
Several types of whale are found only in Arctic waters, including the huge bowhead, named after its bowed lower jaw, and the legendary narwhal. Male narwhals have an extraordinary spiral tusk up to 3m (10ft) long, prompting comparisons with the mythical unicorn. The tusk, an extended ivory tooth, is not used for hunting, and its true function remains something of a mystery.
© Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures/FLPA
HOW DO YOU fight off a polar bear?
With great difficulty, truth to tell, so the real answer is never to get into the situation in the first place. Polar bears are the world’s largest land carnivores. There are many horrific tales of how they’ve stalked and attacked humans, unlike, for example, grizzly and black bears, which don’t see humans as prey, tending to attack only when surprised or threatened. Despite the horror stories, polar bears also generally avoid people unless they are starving, and fatalities are rare.
An adult male is immensely strong and typically weighs around 350kg (800lb), four times the average adult human. It is essential to have with you an armed local guide who should help you avoid encounters in the first place.
Common sense rules include never approaching a bear for any reason, and avoiding the kill site of a seal or other animal. Choose a campsite well away