This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.
After retiring from a long career as a conservation officer with the Canadian government, Derrick Pottle devoted himself to guiding people on the land, carving, hunting, and training bear guards.
Pottle, an elder and skilled guide from the Inuit community of Tikigâksuagusik in Nunatsiavut, founded BearSafe Planning in 2005. The program trains and certifies students to guard against the polar bears and black bears found throughout northern Labrador. The three-day course is advertised as offering “safety, protection, confidence in bear country.”
More than two decades later, that work has taken on renewed urgency. As climate change reshapes the Arctic — particularly the sea ice polar bears rely on to travel and hunt — Inuit are seeing the animals at different times of year and in places they rarely encountered before. Pottle says those changes are increasing the need for people who know how to keep people and bears safe. That, he said, is “the whole objective of the course.”
Graduates of the program keep watch for bears to prevent encounters and learn to recognize signs that a bear is not comfortable. “They may feel threatened, they may feel intimidated, and they may even charge or attack you,” Pottle said. He teaches students “how to recognize those signs, how to prepare yourself for them, the tools you have to use to do your job.”
Canadian officials say encounters between people and polar bears are becoming more likely as a lengthening ice-free season keeps bears on land longer. Inuit and Cree communities have reported polar bears appearing more frequently and in places where they were once rare. Researchers have linked the increase to several factors, including longer ice-free periods, changes in bear abundance and condition, and growing human activity in polar bear habitat.
Pottle developed BearSafe Planning’s training program with input from groups that included Parks Canada, conservationists, Inuit elders, and academics. It started “out of a necessity,” Pottle said, after the creation of Tongait KakKasuangita SilakKijapvinga, (Torngat Mountains National Park) under the 2005 Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement.
“They needed bear guards,” Pottle said. We didn’t have trainers in Nunatsiavut at the time. Somebody had to do it.”
Inuk elder Derrick Pottle founded BearSafe Planning in 2005 to keep people and bears safe. That work has taken on renewed urgency as climate change reshapes the Arctic and encounters with bears grow more common. Frey Blake-Pijogge / IndigiNews
The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet. As climate change remakes landscapes across the North, the need for guards is only for “all species of bears,” Pottle said.
“We’re seeing more and more bears now in this time of our lives than we ever saw before,” he said. “People are seeing polar bears in this part of Inuit Nunangat — where polar bears used to travel north late in the spring — and now are staying all summer long.”
The province’s Endangered Species Act lists polar bears as “vulnerable,” while the federal government deems them a “species of special concern.” Sixty to 80 per cent of the world’s polar bear population lives in Canada, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. The massive carnivores, which can weigh as much as 1,400 pounds, rely upon sea ice to travel, mate, and hunt. “Climate change is the main threat to polar bears,” the agency notes.
Becoming a bear guard can offer employment opportunities, but also can be used for personal safety. “Lots of people just use the bear guard course for their own personal protection when they’re out on the land with their families fishing, hunting and participating in Inuit lifestyle.”
Sherri Wolfrey, a mother of four, is a trained bear guard in Tikigâksuagusik. She recounted how, in 2015, she became “interested in the program and just thought ‘OK, maybe someday I might want to try for a job that involves bear monitoring.’”
Wolfrey is the secretary of Northern Lights Academy and uses her training when she’s out on the land. Last year, she put her certification to work professionally for the first time, when she was contracted as a bear guard in Akami-Uapishkᵁ-KakKasuak (Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve). “Especially up in that area in the bottom of the Mealy’s, it was so beautiful up there,” she told IndigiNews.
She finds the skills valuable even when she isn’t working as a bear guard. “It’s good to have the training,” she said, “because when you do what I like to do, especially being at the cabin … you could know what to expect and what to do if you came upon a bear.”
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Pottle’s experiences started “before there were bear guards.” People in his community would ask him to escort them on outings with boats, dog teams or snowmobiles because he knew the land.
BearSafe Planning offers its course on demand, and has taught as many as 30 students at a time. And though he is an instructor, Pottle also considers himself a student, drawing from the experiences of others.
“I talk to the Elders, I talk to the hunters, I talk to the students,” he said. “A lot of these people live on the land all their lives, so they have lots and lots of experiences and stories. So we learn from one another.”
Employment opportunities for certified bear guards vary by season and can range from day trips to longer-term, full-time work, Pottle said. Cruise ship operators, for instance, hire guards to keep tourists safe when they visit the North, while group outings and land-based programs in Nunatsiavut and elsewhere across Inuit Nunangat also rely on them. Inuit governments and agencies employ trained guards for outings as well.
Pottle sees professionally trained bear guards as “no different than any other aspect of the workforce.”
“It’s not always easy to find employment in the North, and bear guarding can give people — if they choose to — an opportunity to make a good living from it.”
Two decades of teaching students about bear safety has been personally rewarding, Pottle said.
“You’re doing something you love, and you’re going into communities, and you’re … bringing knowledge,” he said. “Our role is to keep people safe, and make sure people enjoy the land and enjoy the surroundings — and get the job done and come home safe at the end of your work day.”
This story was originally published by IndigiNews and updated with additional information by Grist.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In a warming Arctic, Inuit bear guards protect communities on Oct 1, 2026.
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