The Polar Bear Town

Lucia had studied polar bears for six years, but only in books, photos and computer data at her university in Valencia. So when she got off the small plane in Churchill, a town of about nine hundred people on the edge of Hudson Bay in northern Canada, she felt like a child on the first day of school. It was October, the month when hundreds of bears wait by the coast for the sea to freeze.

Her landlady, a cheerful woman called Marge, met her at the airport in an old pickup truck. Before they had even left the parking lot, she started explaining the rules. "First thing: you can't walk around town at night. Not even for five minutes. Bears come into town after dark, and you won't see them until it's too late."

"Second thing," Marge went on, "you have to leave your car unlocked. Everybody does here. If a bear chases you in the street, you're allowed to jump into any car you find. Nobody will call the police. They'll just be glad you're alive."

Lucia laughed, but Marge was serious. She pointed to a phone number on a big sign: the Polar Bear Alert line. "If you see a bear in town, you must call that number. The officers come and scare it away with loud noises. If it keeps coming back, they take it to the polar bear jail." "A jail for bears?" "It's a big building near the airport. They keep the bears there for a few weeks, and then they fly them north by helicopter, far away from town."

The next morning, Lucia met the research team. Her new boss, Daniel, gave her even more rules. "You mustn't go near the rocks by the water without a guard. You don't have to carry a gun, because the guards do that, but you should always carry this." He gave her a small can of bear spray. "And you can't take selfies with the bears. Ever. A tourist tried it last year."

For two weeks, Lucia worked from a special truck with huge tires and thick windows. She counted bears, took photos and watched mothers playing with their cubs in the snow. Every evening she was home before dark, exactly as Marge had told her.

Then, on Halloween night, she saw something strange from her window: children in costumes walking from house to house, and between them, trucks with flashing lights. "Are the kids allowed to go out?" she asked. "Only tonight," Marge said. "But they have to stay on certain streets, and officers and volunteers watch every corner. In Churchill, even the monsters need bodyguards."

On her last morning, as Lucia walked to the bus stop, she saw a young bear at the end of the street, looking at her calmly. She didn't run. She opened the nearest car, sat inside, locked the door and called the alert line. Ten minutes later the bear was gone. When she told Marge, the old woman smiled proudly. "Now," she said, "you're a real local."