One Day in Gambell

Were it not for the following fortuitous events to have taken place in Gambell in what I thought would be just another average day at school, I'm not sure I couldn't have left here thinking "well, I just doesn't get any harrier than this". On a blizzardy Monday morning, April 9, school was just getting in session when word spread that a large polar bear had been shot at the dump at 9 am by local Kenneth Iwoorgin. I pretty much gave up on the idea of Gambell getting polar bears by March as the pack-ice slowly began receeding further north. As soon as school was out, I went to Iwoorgin's house which isn't far from teacher housing to see for myself what the all the fuss was about. No doubt, this was a big animal. It measured nine feet nine inches from tail to nose leading me to beleive I should be able to find some very impressive tracks to match. Getting directions from the hunter, I went north from teacher housing about 1/4 of a mile to the dump and found the bear's skinned carcass and picked up on a nice set of tracks heading north onto the pack ice. It was here I got this picture. It wouldn't be until later that evening however, that the course of this not so ordinary's day's events would reach a very harry conclusion for me! The tracks here measure about eight inches across on the bear's forepaw instep.