The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center’s free Fireside Lecture on Friday, Jan. 29 will be presented by local photographer and guide Laurent Dick. He will take the audience on a visual journey to one of the best places to see polar bears: Alaska’s Beaufort Sea Coast.
The community of Kaktovik on Barter Island is home to about 300 Inupiat Eskimos, who each fall continue the tradition of hunting for bowhead whales. When all of the parts of the whale fit for human consumption have been harvested, the carcass is brought to the bone pile.
Polar bears generally rest along the barrier islands on the coast but do come to the bone pile and the village at night to feed on hunter-harvested bowhead whale remains.
“This situation creates unparalleled opportunities to observe polar bears feeding and interacting at the edge of the Arctic Ocean,” said Dick. The best viewing is from small boats along the barrier islands in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, he reports, just north of Barter Island, where you can observe polar bears at eye level.
“Viewing polar bears in the wild is one of the most unique experiences in the world,” photographer Dick added, “And I have been fortunate to witness some very intimate moments in the lives of polar bears along the Beaufort Sea coast. There is no other place in the world where polar bears and humans co-exist in such close proximity.”
Dick’s lecture begins at 6:30 p.m. and repeats at 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 29. Doors open at 6 p.m.
