grist.org · 11 hours ago

In a Warming Arctic, Inuit Bear Guards Protect Communities | Grist

In the Inuit community of Tikigâksuagusik, where polar bears now linger through summers they once left behind, an elder named Derrick Pottle has built something that sits at the intersection of ancient knowledge and urgent necessity. After decades as a conservation officer, Pottle founded BearSafe Planning - a training program that certifies bear guards by weaving together the counsel of hunters, elders, academics, and the land itself. "I talk to the Elders, I talk to the hunters, I talk to the students," he said. "A lot of these people live on the land all their lives, so they have lots and lots of experiences and stories. So we learn from one another." What emerges from this story is a quiet portrait of people who, facing a landscape transformed by forces largely beyond their making, respond not with despair but with the patient transmission of hard-won wisdom - finding in that act both livelihood and purpose. The goal, as Pottle puts it, is simply "to keep people safe" and make sure they "come home safe at the end of your work day" - a modest ambition that, in a changing Arctic, has become its own form of resilience.