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I dread the fact that one day I may have to tell my grandchildren how great white creatures once roamed Canada's North and then disappeared. But unless we do something, the polar bear will go the way of the dinosaur.
I recently visited Churchill, the settlement on Manitoba's stretch of Hudson Bay famous as a gathering place for the mighty predators. Whether from a helicopter or a “tundra buggy” (imagine a subway car on tractor wheels), seeing what is considered the world's largest bear left me awestruck. As did its surroundings.
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Although I was born in Winnipeg and now spend much of my time in Toronto or Los Angeles, three trips to Northern Manitoba have made a real impression on me. As well as evoking a sense of solitude and humility, this intriguing region has helped me to reconnect with my heritage.
Travelling to York Factory brought me to where, generations ago, the head of the Hudson's Bay Company trading post and his “country wife” started the family that produced my maternal grandmother.
But being in Churchill, first to see beluga whales and now the bears, also has firmed up my relationship with the natural world – and alerted me to important issues affecting it.
When I arrived last month, with the assistance of Polar Bears International, the animals we imagine hunting seals on floes were still waiting on shore. Seeing them in the willows and lined up on the beach ridges was impressive – actually, it felt surreal, as though I were in a zoo being observed (and largely ignored) by them – but I was troubled to learn that they had gone for months without food.
PBI founder Robert Buchanan and research biologist Steven Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey, who has studied the bears for 27 years, told me that their summer fast has grown longer and longer because climate change has caused a remarkable delay in the formation of the sea ice they need to reach the seals and walruses they prey upon.
The late freeze is even more significant because the ice is also breaking up earlier. It now melts about three weeks sooner than it did just three decades ago, meaning that the bears have less time to put on fat to sustain them in summer. I was appalled to learn the average adult female now comes ashore 60 kilograms lighter than she used to, most litters are now limited to one cub. and triplets, once relatively common, are no longer seen.
This area normally was so good for bears that it was the only part of the Arctic where mothers were known to wean their cubs at 11/2 – a full year earlier than elsewhere. But now cubs aren't strong enough to go it alone so young.
I feel so ashamed that the actions of man have caused these beautiful animals – the pride of Manitoba – to be subjected to such deterioration. The laws of physics tell us that adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere warms the planet. Among serious scientists, there is no longer any real debate; if the warming were part of a natural cycle, Dr. Amstrup says, the Earth would be cooling slightly by now.
The plight of the bears isn't irreversible, but the time for action is now. Which is why PBI and other conservation organizations have designated 2008 as the year of the polar bear – they hope to inspire people by exposing what the bears face and offering strategies to lessen the damage. What humans do, they can undo. Consider the successful ban on DDT and the coming together that that produced the Montreal Protocol to try to preserve the ozone layer.
Of course, climate change affects more than polar bears. It has been 125,000 years since this planet was as warm as they say it will be in 50 years, with even warmer temperatures projected after that. Unless something is done, the balance between land and sea will be altered. Problems we associate with faraway places with strange names will be at our front door.
Reducing greenhouse gases is a global issue, but Canadians should take the lead and show the world what we're made of.
Native people believe that the Earth truly is our mother, and that we must take care of her, that we must take only what we can use and that we must give back. Adopting this reverence offers us an opportunity to right many wrongs.
I'd love to greet new residents of our magnificent planet with this message: Welcome to Earth. Enjoy it and, before you leave, make it better.
Chantal Kreviazuk is an award-winning Canadian singer and songwriter.
