Adventureland for spirit development
Say you’re hanging around your garden when suddenly a group of youths enter uninvited and begin acting like they own the place and you’re the intruder. What do you do?
Let’s make it clearer …
Your garden is in a remote area that requires a great deal of effort to reach, therefore visitors are very rare. Not only is this where you hang, it also provides all your food and shelter and needs constant vigilance as life is very difficult, resources spare, and defending what you have is the only chance of survival for you and your family. Historically, trespassers create havoc, steal what little food can be found and leave a mess.
So … do you welcome this surprise visit? Do you greet the interlopers with open arms and a comfy cushion, then go hide in your room so as not to annoy them with your presence?
If you happen to be a polar bear whose garden is the frozen north of Norway, you might not.
As today’s news shows, hospitality may be lacking, and the cost of a less-than-warm welcome is high.
Four victims of an Arctic polar bear attack that left a 17-year-old British boy dead are recovering, according to the UK’s ambassador to Norway.
Jane Owen, who visited the survivors in hospital, said they were talking and responding well to treatment.
Horatio Chapple, 17, from Wiltshire, was killed during a British Schools Exploring Society trip near a glacier on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen.
The four who were hurt – two severely – included two leaders of the trip.
While some of the uninvited are recovering, the bear, of course, is dead.
Yes, I feel sorry for the dead kid, for his family, for those wounded, and find the whole situation tragic, but I’m also sorry for the bear, for its family, and can’t help but be more than a bit pissed off about the idea that an experience for humans too often comes as the cost of life for the creatures who inhabit the small spaces left available.
Contrary to popular thought, the world is not Disneyland and not everything on the planet needs to include people, even when they can afford the E Ticket.
Lars Erik Alfheim, vice-governor of Svalbard, said polar bears were common in the area, adding that they are “extremely dangerous” and can “attack without any notice”.
Mr Alfheim said there was no policy to ban travelling to the islands, but he added it was a wild environment and there were “a number of precautions that one needs to take when travelling here”.
And some of those “precautions” just might include being ready to kiss your ass goodbye if the locals take issue with your presence. Seems appropriate prep for a group who, ” … organises scientific expeditions to remote areas to develop teamwork and a spirit of adventure.”
Where humans and polar bears cross, bears lose, and lose big time:
Between 1980 and 1985 in Alaska, there was only one recorded injury caused by a polar bear, and no deaths
Over a 15-year period in Svalbard, Norway, other researchers documented polar bears killing one person and injuring three others. At least 46 polar bears were killed by people in the same time frame
In a 20-year period in Canada, six human deaths and 14 injuries were attributed to polar bears. During the same period, 251 bears were killed by people “in defence of life and property”
The spirit of a bear dead in the cause of a “spirit of adventure” makes no sense to me, and I can’t help but think teamwork could have been just as easily developed through a scavenger hunt on the Jungle Cruise. After all, it is in Adventureland.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
Lots of non-sequitur random thoughts surround your latest post.
1. Polar Bear rule No.1:If it moves eat it.
2. Polar bears hunt and eat people. Get used to being on the menu. See rule number 1.
3. If these intrepid explorers had actually done a bit more homework and understood what they were in for and who they would almost certainly meet (I’m sure they were actually looking for them)on their great adventure, they probably could have avoided being on the menu.
4. As always happens in these sorts of thing the fault is assigned to the hapless beast who didn’t realize that he was infesting the surroundings. C’mon people. Just as with the random shark attack, the human did not stumble into (insert your favorite maneater here) infested waters/tundra. They are in their home. And as it was so well pointed out at the beginning, in this case the Polar Bear stumbled into a Human infestation.
5. I have worked with Polar Bears and had the awesome, as in full of awe, literally, opportunity to visit them where they live. The wheels are always turning and do not sell them short. They are probably a lot smarter than a lot of people that you have bumped into today.
F. Hospitality was not lacking. Polar Bear was thankful for the appetizers and looking forward to the main course.
VII. I’m pretty sure that hospitality was not lacking as much as good manners and being a considerate guest in Mr/Mrs Bears home was. As was alluded to early in this scenario.
8. I actually remember, at great risk of giving up my chronological age,(by the way, a very happy belated birthday) the E ticket.
Excellent!
I can assure you my dear that you are not the only one who gets pissed at things like this. As you said, yea its sad for the kid, but you know what, when you mess around with animals with sharp things protruding from various places, who also happens to be stronger not to mention faster then you are and to top off it eats meat…. welllll lets just say shit happens. They go into his territory, get attacked and the bear gets the business end of the riffle. I can honestly say that I do not often pity people who are attacked by wild animals in the wilderness. I HATE the way Norway treats its top predators. The wolf for example, farmers let their sheep roam FREE to graze and when a wolf picks up a quick snack its out with the pitchforks to get the “beast”…
Sheep are snacks …
Btw… not to be racial or anything… but notice how in 99% of the cases its always white folks who happen to go looking for things with sharp teeth?
It seems to be white folks who pay for adventures. Most of darker persuasions have enough of those …
I had noticed!
otherwise known as natural selection.
I am sorry for the victims and their families. However, it doesn’t seem fair that wild animals too often end up paying the ultimate price for human stupidity, not to mention human greed. BP’s oil spill(s) comes to mind.
And polar bears are paying the ultimate price in so many different ways. I watched a documentary a few month ago that burned a terrible image onto my brain: an emaciated polar bear climbed out of the ocean and simply lay down on the ice and died. No food available and no fat on its body to insulate it from the freezing temperatures.
The bear was a skeleton covered in white fur. Knowing that humans are responsible for the climate changes that are depriving polar bears of their food sources – and other atrocities – almost makes me ashamed to be human.
Great post.
I’ve never understood why we invade, they pay. Not good, not fair, not the way it should be.
Exactly.