Sergeant Ian Van Nest rolls slowly through the streets of Churchill, his truck outfitted with a rifle and a barred back seat to hold anyone he has to arrest.
His eyes dart back and forth, then settle on a crowd of people standing outside a van. He scans the area for safety and addresses the group’s leader, unsure of the man’s weapons.
“How are you today?” Van Nest asks. The leader responds with a wary, “We OK for you here?”
“You’re good. You got a lot of distance there. When you have people disembarking from the vehicle you should have a bear monitor,” Van Nest, a conservation officer for the Canadian province of Manitoba, cautions as the tourists gaze at a polar bear on the rocks.
“So, if that’s you, just have your shotgun with you, right? Slugs and cracker shells if you have, or a scare pistol.”
It is the beginning of polar bear season in Churchill, a tiny town on a spit of land jutting into Hudson Bay, and keeping tourists safe from hungry and sometimes fierce bears is an essential job for Van Nest and many others.