Cinematographer Jamie McPherson took a crew to northern Canada to shoot footage of narwhals for the Netflix documentary series Our Planet in 2017. In his account of the trip, we will learn more about narwhals than about polar bears, but it was the bear that made the project dramatic. Narwhals gather at the edge of the ice in spring, waiting for the ice to crack so they can reach fishings grounds that were closed to them all winter. The crew got aerial footage in a helicopter, and underwater footage from a specialized crew, but they needed footage from the ground, meaning the ice, to round out the collection. For safety, they were using a boat.
They spotted the polar bear asleep as they prepared to set off in the boat. When the bear woke up and started running toward them, one crew member fired a warning shot to scare it off, but found the gun didn't work. They got the boat into the water in a hurry, planning to put some distance between themselves and the bear. But the boat motor didn't work, either. Since McPherson is telling the story now, you know he survived, and you can read his account at DiscoverWildlife. The moral of the story is to check all your equipment before going on an Arctic adventure. -via Damn Interesting
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