Note:  This was original published in Up Here Magazine.
 

“Um, Erin”, I stumbled, not quite sure how to phrase what I was about to say.  Erin, my wife, was at home. “Dave?” she replied, curious as to why I was phoning her when I was outside, working. I had run into a small problem.

 “Erin”, I repeated. “I’m up a telephone pole. There’s three polar bears underneath me.  Do you think you could phone someone?”

 
**********************************************************************

 
After moving to Resolute Bay from Nova Scotia, I somehow found myself answering a job posting for Northwestel – the main telco of the north.  ‘Community Technician’ is what a man named Rob calls the position when I phone to inquire about the job.  “You’ll install a few new telephone lines and fix a few problem lines.  Resolute’s not a big community, so it really won’t be that difficult”. 

Three months later it’s deep into “dark season”, a murky period of about three or four months where the sun is a passing memory.  A daily call into my Northwestel dispatcher, Kim, reveals that all is quiet in the world of telecommunications except that one customer has noise on her line.  I silently groan, knowing that in addition to the blackness of the day it has also been in the low minus thirties for about three weeks straight, with wind chills approaching fifty below.

After confirming through a diagnosis that yes, yes there is indeed static on her line, I head towards the telephone pole behind her house and look up to the wires – my objective – above.  Normally, they hang about 25 feet above the ground. However, the wind-packed snow has become so deep that this has been reduced to 15 feet. 

 I reach down and tighten my spurs – cold, sharpened points of steel which allow me to step into a telephone pole – and ensure that I have all my necessary tools strapped to my waist.  I start shimmying up the icy stick to my desired point above.

About half way up – a dismal seven feet – something doesn’t feel right.  The dark evening, which is usually silent save for the occasional whine of a snowmobile engine or the shout of some bundled child, is suddenly filled with the collective howls of the entirety of the Resolute Bay dog population.  The noise isn’t pleasant and I can feel the hair stand up on my arm.  A polar bear.

Dogs are the built-in alarm system of the tiny hamlet, and when they start their frenzied chorus, you know what’s coming.  I look down, nothing.  I scan around at the three or four houses in my line of sight.  Nothing.  I look back down, and see a flash of white.  My heart stops.  My heart pounds like a four-stroke engine.

Rounding the corner of the nearest house behind me – about thirty feet away – are three polar bears.  One mother and two yearlings, and they look – at least to my blurred perception – as big as any living thing I have ever laid my eyes upon.  Seeing them there, walking towards me with frightening speed and agility, their lengthy, powerful limbs cutting through the snow, effortlessly, is as improbable to my own sense of reasoning as if I had seen a pina colada stand – complete with umbrella-covered coconut drinks – in the middle of the Arctic desert.

My mind raced; this was it.

I steal another frightened glance down and realized that this lightless dream I was in was only turning worse.  The three bears are now at the base of the pole, looking skyward, and the mother – approximately eight feet of her – is reaching up with her massive arms, complete with massive claw-tipped paws.  She rests them about half way up the pole; the same place where I was hanging only moments earlier.

Wow, I think.  This isn’t good.  This really isn’t good.  Your mind doesn’t work in descriptive prose when you’re within seven feet of something that could eat you.

Although I am in complete and utter disbelief, something clicks in my mind and I become a machine of instinct.  Ignoring the bears below me and the question of whether or not they could climb (I continue to hear differing opinions), I rotate around the pole into a comfortable position and pry open the latch to the telephone access terminal, hooking up my buttset – a technician’s portable telephone set .  Resting the phone’s receiver against my ear, I silently pray and then start randomly listening on various pairs, hoping to stumble across someone’s working phone line.  On my third try, I find a free line and blindly dial the only number that jumps to mind:  my own.

“Um, Erin”, I stumble.  “Dave?” she replies.

“Erin…there’s three polar bears underneath me.  Do you think you could phone someone?”

Silence.

“Dave?” she repeats back to me, this time with nervous fear permeating her voice, although she’s still unsure if I’m serious or just joking.  She instinctually knows that I’m not joking - not with something like this.

“There’s three polar bears under me.  I’m up the pole. I’m behind Sharla’s house.”  My sentences are short and shaky.  “Can you phone someone?  Maybe the cops?”  I hang up, and pray again.

As I hang up, I steal a glance down.  Eye contact.  I am mesmerized and frightened beyond belief. I stay silent, fearing that my thoughts are loud enough.  Somewhere in the background of my perception I recognize the dogs screaming at the top of their lungs - Polar Bear! Polar Bear! - but it’s muffled – at least to me.  I already know, damn it.  Tell someone who can help. 

Looking down, the mother bear momentarily shifts her weight back and forth, and I take this as a sign that my legs are about to become breadsticks.  Somehow – improbably – she leaves her standing position and returns back to all fours. As she should be.  Sniffing, she scurries over to Simon’s the next house and starts digging under a porch.  A seal, frozen under the porch.  There’s a seal under his back porch! 

Dog food!  That’s it!  The bears have now forgotten about me, clawing at the carcass with frenzy.  The whine of a snowmobile hits my ears as it rounds the corner to the house, and then the bears are off, dragging their prize.  My lungs – which have held my breath since I hung up with my wife – collapse and I close my eyes.

Ten minutes later I return home.  Erin meets me at the door and throws her arms around me.  “How are you?” she asks, but words escape me.  My legs are jelly, I can’t speak. 

Note:  This was original published in Up Here Magazine.
 

“Um, Erin”, I stumbled, not quite sure how to phrase what I was about to say.  Erin, my wife, was at home. “Dave?” she replied, curious as to why I was phoning her when I was outside, working. I had run into a small problem.

 “Erin”, I repeated. “I’m up a telephone pole. There’s three polar bears underneath me.  Do you think you could phone someone?”

 
**********************************************************************

 
After moving to Resolute Bay from Nova Scotia, I somehow found myself answering a job posting for Northwestel – the main telco of the north.  ‘Community Technician’ is what a man named Rob calls the position when I phone to inquire about the job.  “You’ll install a few new telephone lines and fix a few problem lines.  Resolute’s not a big community, so it really won’t be that difficult”. 

Three months later it’s deep into “dark season”, a murky period of about three or four months where the sun is a passing memory.  A daily call into my Northwestel dispatcher, Kim, reveals that all is quiet in the world of telecommunications except that one customer has noise on her line.  I silently groan, knowing that in addition to the blackness of the day it has also been in the low minus thirties for about three weeks straight, with wind chills approaching fifty below.

After confirming through a diagnosis that yes, yes there is indeed static on her line, I head towards the telephone pole behind her house and look up to the wires – my objective – above.  Normally, they hang about 25 feet above the ground. However, the wind-packed snow has become so deep that this has been reduced to 15 feet. 

 I reach down and tighten my spurs – cold, sharpened points of steel which allow me to step into a telephone pole – and ensure that I have all my necessary tools strapped to my waist.  I start shimmying up the icy stick to my desired point above.

About half way up – a dismal seven feet – something doesn’t feel right.  The dark evening, which is usually silent save for the occasional whine of a snowmobile engine or the shout of some bundled child, is suddenly filled with the collective howls of the entirety of the Resolute Bay dog population.  The noise isn’t pleasant and I can feel the hair stand up on my arm.  A polar bear.

Dogs are the built-in alarm system of the tiny hamlet, and when they start their frenzied chorus, you know what’s coming.  I look down, nothing.  I scan around at the three or four houses in my line of sight.  Nothing.  I look back down, and see a flash of white.  My heart stops.  My heart pounds like a four-stroke engine.

Rounding the corner of the nearest house behind me – about thirty feet away – are three polar bears.  One mother and two yearlings, and they look – at least to my blurred perception – as big as any living thing I have ever laid my eyes upon.  Seeing them there, walking towards me with frightening speed and agility, their lengthy, powerful limbs cutting through the snow, effortlessly, is as improbable to my own sense of reasoning as if I had seen a pina colada stand – complete with umbrella-covered coconut drinks – in the middle of the Arctic desert.

My mind raced; this was it.

I steal another frightened glance down and realized that this lightless dream I was in was only turning worse.  The three bears are now at the base of the pole, looking skyward, and the mother – approximately eight feet of her – is reaching up with her massive arms, complete with massive claw-tipped paws.  She rests them about half way up the pole; the same place where I was hanging only moments earlier.

Wow, I think.  This isn’t good.  This really isn’t good.  Your mind doesn’t work in descriptive prose when you’re within seven feet of something that could eat you.

Although I am in complete and utter disbelief, something clicks in my mind and I become a machine of instinct.  Ignoring the bears below me and the question of whether or not they could climb (I continue to hear differing opinions), I rotate around the pole into a comfortable position and pry open the latch to the telephone access terminal, hooking up my buttset – a technician’s portable telephone set .  Resting the phone’s receiver against my ear, I silently pray and then start randomly listening on various pairs, hoping to stumble across someone’s working phone line.  On my third try, I find a free line and blindly dial the only number that jumps to mind:  my own.

“Um, Erin”, I stumble.  “Dave?” she replies.

“Erin…there’s three polar bears underneath me.  Do you think you could phone someone?”

Silence.

“Dave?” she repeats back to me, this time with nervous fear permeating her voice, although she’s still unsure if I’m serious or just joking.  She instinctually knows that I’m not joking - not with something like this.

“There’s three polar bears under me.  I’m up the pole. I’m behind Sharla’s house.”  My sentences are short and shaky.  “Can you phone someone?  Maybe the cops?”  I hang up, and pray again.

As I hang up, I steal a glance down.  Eye contact.  I am mesmerized and frightened beyond belief. I stay silent, fearing that my thoughts are loud enough.  Somewhere in the background of my perception I recognize the dogs screaming at the top of their lungs - Polar Bear! Polar Bear! - but it’s muffled – at least to me.  I already know, damn it.  Tell someone who can help. 

Looking down, the mother bear momentarily shifts her weight back and forth, and I take this as a sign that my legs are about to become breadsticks.  Somehow – improbably – she leaves her standing position and returns back to all fours. As she should be.  Sniffing, she scurries over to Simon’s the next house and starts digging under a porch.  A seal, frozen under the porch.  There’s a seal under his back porch! 

Dog food!  That’s it!  The bears have now forgotten about me, clawing at the carcass with frenzy.  The whine of a snowmobile hits my ears as it rounds the corner to the house, and then the bears are off, dragging their prize.  My lungs – which have held my breath since I hung up with my wife – collapse and I close my eyes.

Ten minutes later I return home.  Erin meets me at the door and throws her arms around me.  “How are you?” she asks, but words escape me.  My legs are jelly, I can’t speak.