HEADLINE: Have you ever wanted to disobey or break the rules?
“Why did we ever move here?” I moaned. “There are zero roads to this horrible town, and I’m positive nobody will ever visit us here.”
Living in Churchill, Manitoba, approximately 2,000 miles south of the Geographic North Pole, felt like the land of absolutely nowhere. But in fact, it was the place of many unusual experiences. It was where I kissed a boy, ran away from home, and first heard the Bee Gees sing Stayin’ Alive on vinyl. It was also where I gazed in awe at the Northern Lights, touched a beluga whale, witnessed a real rocket take-off, and saw a polar bear.
Over the years, my friends have heard various versions of my northern escapades. But for those who don’t know me, my wilderness childhood days were, well, how should I put it, character-building.
My family moved to Churchill when I was in the middle of fifth grade. We were slowly acclimatizing to the extreme weather conditions, and somehow, we survived our first two seasons (winter and summer) without too much drama.
But we were completely unprepared for what late autumn would bring.
There were rules to living in a town located on the southern edge of the Canadian Arctic, and I still remember a few:
- Look outside BEFORE you leave a building, house, or vehicle.
- Never find yourself between a mother bear and her cubs.
- Memorize the Polar Bear Alert line.
- And don’t forget, once it’s dark outside, you must refrain from baking cakes, cookies, or other delectable nibbles—a polar bear can smell these delights from miles away.
Now, let me ask you this: Have you ever seen a polar bear up close? A full-grown bear standing on all fours is already a force to be reckoned with, but when these arctic creatures rise on their hind legs, you better run. Actually, don’t. Instead, you are to stay calm. And just so you have the complete picture, a male adult polar bear can stand ten feet tall. Although this is not a zoology lesson, these details are essential as I continue.
It was a typical school night, and after dinner, my sister Connie and I quickly completed our chores and disappeared upstairs, leaving my mom to finish and redo our efforts. My mom loves to bake, and for some reason, this was the evening she forgot about Rule #4: don’t bake after dark. She was in the process of pulling the last tray of cookies from the oven when she heard a distinctive scratch on the kitchen window. Assuming it was the cat from next door, my mom opened the curtains to shoo it away. But instead of the sound coming from the neighbour’s scrawny cat, there, nose pressed against the windowpane, was the face of a mama polar bear.
“Babe!” I heard my mom shout as she raced out the side door—leaving the cookies on the kitchen counter and her husband and children to fend for themselves.
I believe my mom’s screams must have startled the bear, and thankfully, the massive hulk of a thing retreated into the night. As a family, we were not setting the best example for following the rules or remaining calm.
But really, stay calm when you are face to face with a polar bear? Not possible.
A few nights later, mom came home from work and went straight into the kitchen, refusing to believe Rule #4 was really a thing. She had finished her evening shift at the hospital, and although it was already 7:00 pm, she still wanted to bake a Christmas Fruit Cake before she went to bed.
“Deanna, wake up,” my mother said in a hushed tone.
The hall light was shining directly into my eyes, so I rolled over in protest. I don’t wake quickly, and the parental tugging at my blanket seemed irrational. I pulled the bedsheets over my head and tried to fall back asleep, but even in my dreamy state, I could tell things weren’t quite right. My mother was whispering to my father, and her voice seemed strange. She has three distinct voice styles. The first was calm and easygoing and used when my father called. The second was the energized and social voice when friends called to chat, and the third voice was firm and emphatic. When we heard the third voice, we knew one of us kids (or maybe all of us) was in trouble. But on this particular night, my mom’s voice was different, and it didn’t match any of the ones I had come to know.
“Deanna! Wake up,” my mother pleaded.
The words were starting to register. It was something about a bear, so I opened my eyes and saw my father’s silhouette in the doorway. Was that a rifle he was holding? Why was he carrying a gun? My dad was not a hunter—I don’t think he even knew how to use the thing.
“Deanna! Get up. A polar bear is trying to break in!”
A POLAR BEAR? BREAKING IN? Now I was awake.
I flung my blankets into the air and jumped off the bed. But I was disorientated and forgot I was on the top bunk, so I landed with a thud on the floor. I looked up and caught a glimpse of my middle sister Connie, who had wedged herself into the furthest corner of the bottom bunk. My youngest sister Lois, still wrapped in her bedsheets from the other room, was sound asleep at the foot of Connie’s bed. And my mother was frantically searching for our housecoats while my father was wrestling with our frozen bedroom window.
“Girls, where are your housecoats?” asked my mother.
“I don’t know,” I sheepishly replied. But I knew where mine was. I had thrown it on the floor inside the closet, precisely where it was not supposed to be.
Mom gave up the housecoat search and grabbed two wool turtleneck sweaters from the dresser. “Put these on over your nightgowns,” she said. “Quickly now.”
While Connie and I fought to get our heads through the neck of our sweaters, mom was putting socks and crocheted slippers on our feet, and my father was chipping away at the ice surrounding the window frame with his metal letter opener.
I stood next to the window peering into the night. Our house was a converted army barrack located a mile east of town. The barracks consisted of rows of two-storey fourplexes connected by a common corridor concealing a steam-heated pipeline below the floor. The pipeline corridor looked like a white snake poking through multiple square boxes, forming a single continuous line a quarter of a mile long. These boxes were our homes, and Connie and I shared a bedroom above the pipeline’s roof.
I felt momentarily safe with the whole family in our room, even with a bear ransacking the place. And then, without warning, we heard a thunderous crash come from downstairs, and I think we all stopped breathing for a second or two. Our front entry had a heavy solid-core door with a small glass vision pane, and the bear had finally busted through this barrier and was stomping on broken glass and splinters of wood. My father leaned out the bedroom window and saw the remnants of what used to be our front door strewn across the steps below. “The bear has broken into the mudroom!” my father exclaimed.
Then there was another loud thud and the sound of more wood splitting.
“Dad, the bear is going to get us!” I shrieked.
“Listen carefully,” my father replied. “We need you and Connie to jump out the window and go to the neighbours to get help.”
“I don’t wanna go on the roof,” Connie said as she burst into tears and ran into the closet to hide.
“Babe! It sounds like the bear is in the kitchen!” said my mom, forgetting we were in the room.
When I heard the bear was getting closer, I looked at my mom, then my dad, and instantly knew what could happen next. “Let me in!” I said as I pounded on the closet door while my parents barricaded the bedroom entry with a heavy wooden dresser.
“Girls! You have to get out,” said my mom.
It was a four-foot drop to the snow-covered roof below our bedroom window. “What if the bear decides to climb up and attack us,” I demanded. It would be easy enough. All it would have to do is step on top of the garbage cans, balance on the handrail, and poof. Heck, if we kids could do it, so could a gigantic polar bear.
I decided I was going to go first. I sat on the windowsill, shaking from the cold. “Here is your housecoat,” Connie said as she crept out of the bedroom closet.
I swung my legs over the sill, preparing to jump, when I saw the polar bear emerge from the house. I froze. What if it sees me?
“Shhhh,” I commanded with my finger pressed against my lips. “The bear is on our front steps.”
As the bear moved down the steps and away from the house, I could tell it had something in its mouth. It looked like a small black animal, or maybe it was a piece of warm cake. Whatever it was, I didn’t care.
The family was safe, the fruit cake was still in one piece, and the bear snuck away with my boot.
