i had a broken jaw
i had a collapsed lung i had cracked
vertebra in my neck
broken neck but it didn't it didn't get
into the spinal column that this hand
was just kind of crunched so he broke
some of these bones and he damaged the
nerves
and
essentially as i understand it paralyzed
one of my vocal cords
his bottom jaw kind of dug in here
and his top one was over in here and he
kind of had me like that
and i can remember
looking out i could see his belly and
leg and everything it was he didn't take
his claws to me which is good um so i
think all the injuries i got with bites
he was just trying to get me out of that
tent with his mouth probably trying to
hold the tent down with his hands i
don't know
all the remember
[Music]
on july 24 2013 matt dyer was attacked
and nearly killed by a polar bear while
on a camping trip with the sierra club
in the torngat mountains the touring
gats are in the labrador peninsula on
the northern edge of newfoundland about
500 miles south of the arctic circle
in recent decades temperatures in the
arctic have been rising at unprecedented
rates and the ice where polar bears live
and hunt steels is disappearing
in turn hungry polar bears are being
forced onto land where they seek
alternative food sources
sometimes even attacking humans in an
effort to survive
in towns like arviat canada
armed bear monitors patrol the streets
scaring away the ever-increasing number
of polar bears that arrive
in churchill canada so many polar bears
parade through downtown that they've
built a special jail to hold them all
the earth and the conflict between polar
bears and humans is heating up
a year after his attack matt wanted to
return to the torngat mountains to get
closure after his near-death experience
and to revisit the bears that nearly
killed him
we went along for the journey to
investigate the connection between
climate change and polar bear attacks
name's matthew dyer i'm a staff attorney
pine tree legal assistance in lewiston
maine and we represent low-income people
in civil legal disputes i also help
people with public benefits issues
disability overpayments it's what they
used to call poverty law i've been here
15 years
it's a good long time
you know i got so much polar bear swag
when i got back and people are i was
like was that going to this body or
anything like that no
not at all the polar bear would
right on the desk
but i mean
everyone's different everyone has
different
ways they react to trauma and stuff like
that
i don't get it that way i guess
[Music]
my last trip there got cut off so short
there were more things i wanted to see
more time i wanted to spend there try to
absorb
[Music]
i got to be quite honest after this trip
this is kind of the closure for me i've
never been through a trauma like that
before and i just think it's one way to
work through it in my own mind i may be
wrong
[Music]
there's a lot worse ways you could go
i mean really if you gotta we all gotta
take that journey alone sometime and
that one way to you know getting ripped
up by your bears
in many ways better than being a nurse
at home for 15 years lost your mind
yourself
you know
i tried to look at it that way
it's a positive side
oh
matt is the most resilient guy i have
ever met
um he is you know he
he really has a sense of of humor about
it he was attacked by a polar bear was
almost killed and is able to talk about
this
is willing to go back yes i think you
were crazy if you did the same thing
that we did without figuring out more
carefully
what what what
well rich is the one that always comes
up with these interesting places to go
and we like to go places
that
people have not gone before the wildlife
the fjords it just seemed like a really
interesting place to go and what i was
looking into was okay we've got a
destination how do we get there and i
found the company called rapid lake
lodge and they offered flying us into
the park we did tons of research around
what the right protocols are in polar
bear country and some people recommend
bear guards some don't we talk to our
outfitter and he has sent a number of
people out there before with with those
protections we talked to parts canada
about our trip and what we should do we
told them what protections we had we
were carrying flare guns
the fence bear bangers and bear spray
they thought that was fine and also the
other information we had from the park
was that
among the pieces of equipment that you
could use for bear deterrent the electro
fence wasn't one of them and so we
figured we had all of those plus the
electric fence so sure we felt safe and
and we believed that the fence was was
adequate we had no reason to believe we
were going to be attacked in the middle
of the night and in fact we had nev
nobody had ever heard of that before so
we had no reason to think that that
would happen
[Music]
we're here at base camp it's the entry
point to the torn gut mountains and
we're going to get a crash course right
now on how to stay safe around polar
bears it's very likely we're going to
see a lot of them this trip
you know we figured we'd be okay with
that fence
i mean i've never came to bear country i
just
didn't know but once i saw that fence
we're
and we were
he can get through this building if it
wants to that's the problem
the bear puts his mind to it he'll do
what he wants
unless you're going to make a solid
steel wall and then it takes away from
the effect of where you are
you know now you're in a compound or a
prison
we've always had that concern about what
do we do with people that aren't with us
how are we liable are we responsible
base camp is here
so
when i hear that someone's camping in
the park i don't get too excited but
i figure anyone that wants to camp
inside in the interior like that is
probably pretty experienced
that's not always the case but you
always try to hope so
then this is a mandatory video that you
have to watch so if you need a bathroom
break i suggest you take it now it's a
it's a it's not a very long video so
you okay
okay
[Music]
what should you do if a polar bear
approaches
your best response is always to stop
stay as calm as possible and quickly
assess the situation
from the 1960s to the 2000s there were
about 7 to 12 polar bear attacks per
decade but in the past five years there
have already been at least 14 attacks
and it's predicted that there will be 35
by the end of this decade
five times more than in previous decades
sometimes the bear may make an
aggressive lunge at you
if it does
stand your ground
this may be difficult
facing an aggressive bear will be
terrified
if it persists or attacks
respond as you would for a predatory
attack
fight for your life and shoot to kill
most visitors most groups here
go to extraordinary lengths to make sure
that they don't put themselves in a
situation
which provides a bear with that kind of
opportunity
it occurred in an area where
we would have and did highly recommend
the group not to be traveling in or not
to be camping in
because here bears are typically found
along the coast
close to the water
you wouldn't have seen
anybody any bear guard agreeing to camp
there our our folks here would go a
minimum of 10 kilometers inland and even
then you need to be careful very careful
but
when we say stay away from the coast
we mean you know 10 kilometers inland
right where they camped that is polar
bear highway it's very dangerous we see
polar bears there all the time
that's what they told you guys when you
were up there
they didn't even tell us that when we
were there when they picked us up in the
time that we stayed at base camp that
was never mentioned you know we had told
parks canada where we were going to
to land i mean we said we were going to
go to that beach why wouldn't someone
have told us that i mean because that's
a place that gets advertised as a trip i
mean
we didn't come up with this idea on our
own so then just to be clear why was
matt's group allowed to camp there well
i think because matt's group
came along before
we fully understood the potential
risks that were associated with that
area
we can give them as much good advice as
we think is good advice and and people
still want to go out there and
experience the land and experience
travel on the land and
sometimes they take chances sometimes
they win and sometimes they lose we were
adequately prepared to
what i think anyone's knowledge of the
risk was at that point
for backpacking trips in polar bear
country i'm not aware of a lot of
incidents if you go back 10 years of
polar bears attacking humans
but apparently the incidence is
rising
so maybe the rules for being in polar
bear country have to change