Dealing with polar bears in the workplace

At the end of one particular presentation, a member of the audience asked Ann how she would deal with a recurring problem that – despite every effort – remained unresolved.

“I spoke about how the difficulties we all face on a daily basis are remarkably similar even though the actual environments might be very different. On an expedition there are many small challenges such as the unbearable cold, the difficult terrain and the heavy sledges. There are also really large problems like dealing with polar bears. Sometimes these challenges won’t go away and require innovative approaches in order to find solutions.

“The first bear I encountered with was a female with two cubs. I had to keep calm, look at all the options, and try to figure out how to handle the situation without any harm coming to the bears or me.

“The main thing in my mind was to stay safe. I also wanted to capture the animals on video because I knew I may never see a polar bear up-close again. So I got my gun to hand and then I videoed the bears until the last possible moment. Finally I did what I had been trained to do. I made a lot of noise and shot the ice in front of the bears to scare them away. And they ran off, which was fantastic.

“Unfortunately the bear problem didn’t go away completely. My second encounter was with a huge male polar bear who circled my tent half a dozen times. I was only half-dressed and I knew it would take too long to finish putting all my gear on. So I immediately shot the ice in front of the bear, expecting that to be an end to it. But this particular bear didn’t back off.

“Sometimes the same problem might keep coming back at you, and you have to deal with it differently. So I fired over the bear’s head and this time he left. But he returned and stalked me for five days. At one point I changed direction away from the North Pole and he still shadowed me.

“In the end I thought, ‘This is silly. I want to go north. If he is going to track me, he might as well follow me north.’ I decided to cut behind him to present him with a choice of turning around and either encountering me directly, which was fine because if there was to be a final confrontation I wanted it to be sooner rather than later, or to leave me alone. He chose to go away.

“I spoke to the audience about how I remained aware of the ongoing problem during the course of those five days whilst refusing to let it deter me from moving towards my end goal, which was the North Pole.

“When problems come at me at work and on expeditions I ask myself, ‘How do I deal with this? What is the outcome I want? And is there anything I can take from this problem and use to my advantage?‘ With regard to the last point, I now have a video of three polar bears that I can watch in the comfort of my home.”