The World’s Most Dangerous Reverend
My Polar Bear Selfie
No great art has ever been created without the artist having known danger ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
So the other night I got tagged in a Facebook post by my friend Mark who I hiked with on the Appalachian Trail. He’s Kingfisher for those of you who read my book Appalachian Trail Happiness. The comment was, I think you’re in this video and it was entitled The most dangerous photos ever taken. The photo above shows up in the video at the end of the section about the grizzly selfies.
Dangerous Selfies
The video shows some dangerous photos and talks about how one person died trying to take a similar photo. The section my photo appears in is at the end of a series of grizzly bear selfies. Now I in fact agree one-hundred percent with the point they make in the video. Taking a selfie in the wild with a bear is STUPID. Whether it’s a black bear and particularly if it’s a grizzly. Taking a selfie in the wild with a polar bear would be absolutely suicidal. However that’s not really the story behind my shot.
Aurora while photographing Polar Bears in the Arctic
Photographing Polar Bears
I have written about my polar bear adventure on this blog before. The picture used in the video, my polar bear selfie above, was a completely safe endeavor. I was on a guided trip photographing polar bears in the Canadian Arctic just outside of Churchill, Manitoba. When you look at the photo a couple of things should jump out at you, the first is the size of the bear. The bear behind me in the photo is an 1100 pound male polar bear. In the photo he doesn’t seem very big and that’s because he’s 15 feet below me and another 10 feet out from the platform. The platform is part of a facility and the base was a steel grating system. The bears could walk underneath us but had no way of getting to us. Here’s two close-ups of the same bear.
Look at that paw, as big as a dinner plate
Look at that canine tooth, he was actually gnawing on a giant tire just outside the facility
The other thing to notice in the picture, in the lower left corner just past my elbow, you can see part of the railing on the platform. I assure you I was absolutely safe, but had the thought I might actually be able to pull the shot off, ran to my room, got my phone and BAM, there it is. A very happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
The Ministry of Happiness 