OnTopOfTheWorld

Hardcover: 160 pages

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (13 Oct 2005)

Orion Publishing Group

Language English

ISBN: 0297844229

Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 9.8 inches

A passionate angler, Chris Tarrant's interest in bears was first triggered by sightings of grizzlies whilst fishing in the wilds of Canada. For years he harboured a plan to mount an expedition in search of their more ferocious cousins, polar bears. They are to be found in greatest numbers in the extreme north of Norway, about 400 miles south of the pole, near Svalbard, immortalized in Philip Pullman's `His Dark Materials' trilogy.

Early in 2005, with his 17-year stint at Capital Radio at last behind him, he assembled a TV crew and stills photographer and headed for Svalbard in the `Kingdom of the Polar Bear' for `one of the most amazing adventures of my life'.

Introduction

by Chris Tarrant

I have always loved bears...

I've always been fascinated by bears. I've also found them utterly terrifying. The Inuits have a word for the emotions evoked by a polar bear - 'ilyra'. it means 'fear mixed with awe'. A friend who ran a safari park once told me that the animal he feared the most would always be the bear. Even the most aggressive big cat, he said, would usually show it's intentions towards you. But a bear would attack with no warning. For four days a week they would happily let you feed them, and on the fifth day they'd turn and kill you.

Over the years, before I'd evercaught sight of a polar bear, I'd seen many other bears - brown and black in Russia and Canada, and enormous grizzlies in Alaska. The first one of all was in Alaska. It happened in the middle of the night and the bear was running like hell, in a panic.

I was on a fishing trip to the beautifaul Chosen River. we had been warned that there were a lot of grizzly bears in the area. But we'd also been told that, so long as we were careful, and stayed close to our guide, they shouldn't be a problem.

However, at the end of our first day, it became evident that there actually was a problem - a serious one. What was judged by its footprints to be a very large grizzly had been visiting our camp regulary during the small hours of the morning. Although wary of humans, it had found the smell of cooking too good to ignore. So much so that the amiable American family who ran the camp, the Duncans, were worried that sooner or later there would be a confrontation between a bear and one of the guests.

At this point Bobby Duncan, the youngest and easliy the maddest of the family, decided to set his own version of a bear trap. It was one of the most splendid and absurd creations I have ever seen. That night, he settled himself to sleep on the cookhouse floor, with a loaded shotgun by his side. A rope was tied to his big toe, and fastened at the other end to a large steel table. This was just outside the cook tent and covered in fresh slmon, with a couple of pounds of sausages. Saucepan lids, metal trays and tin cans were also scattered across the table top.

At breakfast next morning , Bobby was still fast asleep on the floor, with the rope attached firmly as ever to his big toe. Next night too there was no Mr Bear. By the third night we'd almost forgotten that Bobby was tucked up again on the cookhouse floor with his trap ready.

About two o'clock next morning, however, an enormous crash was followed by a terrifying roar, and two booming blasts from a gun. We emerged from our tents to see flashlamps everywhere and not one bear but two, racing away from the camp at a speed that wouldn't have disgraced a cheetah. Bobby Duncan was grinning in triumph. He had blasted both barrels over the heads of the bears, who were unlikely to come to the camp again. In fact no bears came round to it for the rest of the summer.

Alaska was also the first place where I became aware of the disturbing sensation that people mean by 'feeling the bears'. This expression is used to describe sensing the presence of bears, but without actually seeing them. I have since experienced it many, many times.

We were salmon fishing, and our guide had droped us by the Chosen River where it reaches the top of a long gravel run, The routine was for him to sit in the boat, supposedly on red alert, while we fished downriver for an hour or so. I say 'supposedly' because I'm convinced that alot of the time my armed-to-the-teeth-ever-vigilant guide was actually catching up on a bit of sleep.

On several occasions, walking back through thick forest in which the biggest grizzly could easily hide, I'd discovered huge paw prints somewhere along the very path I had taken about an hour before. But each time, our guide insisted that he hadn't been asleep and that these were old paw prints from many days ago.

Well' they looked pretty damn fresh to me. Some overlapped the boot marks I'd left that day when going the other way. The final giveaway came one morning when, returning to the boat and 'Hawkeye', my guide, I passed an enormous pile of fresh, steaming bear dung. The guide did sheepishly admit that he might have closed his eyes for just a few minutes.

This was the evidence left by big grizzly bears that presumably had come out, taken a quick look, and decided not to eat me that particular morning.

Most bears do this, most of the time. There are many accounts of grizzly bear attacks, but not many records of fatalities. After making an initial terryfying charge, usually the bear will back off. But compared to other members of the bear family, the polar bear is much more aggressive, and one of the few animals that will sometimes follow the scent of a human in order to hunt him down. Like most animals the polar bear would usually rather back away from man - but not always. He is the ultimate dangerous predator. If he attacks he will usually kill, and if he kills he will probably eat his prey.

Only a very small and exclusive club exists of people who have survived a polar bear attack. Currently its membership worldwide is believed to number less than ten.

But, though terryfying, polar bears are also beautiful, graceful and hugely impressive. Since first seeing pictures of them as a little boy in my 'Big Book of Bears' I had also wanted to see one in the wild. As I started to encounter other bears on fishing trips in the years that followed, the obsession had grown. More than anything I wanted to get close - but not too close - to a polar bear.

It had become one of those things you have to do before you die. So, last summer, with a bit of free time in my life for once, I set out on what proved to be one of the most enthralling journeys of my life.

Transcript from 'Parkinson'

Saturday 22 October 2005, ITV1

Michael: My first guest hosts the world's most popular game show, has been on the telly since Tiswas in the seventies and for eighteen years hosted the live breakfast show on Capital Radio before leaving to seek a new direction, in this case the North Pole, looking for polar bears.

(Clip from Tarrant On Top Of The World)

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Tarrant. (Applause)

Welcome. Explain the fascination of bears?

Chris: They are just the most humbling, awesome, terrifying creature on the planet, just extraordinary. I'd seen an awful lot of bears in Alaska, in Canada, I'd seen big grizzlies, I'd seen black bears in Russia but the polar bear just dwarfs them all, it is this huge beautiful animal.

Michael: So you funded this documentary yourself, you set out to make this with your own money.

Chris: Yeah, started with my own money, you can't relate to that can you? (Laughter)

Michael: You've got plenty of it!

Chris: It started with me, well one of the things I wanted to do before I die is see a polar bear and I rang a mate of mine, Martin and said, 'What's the best place to get near them?' And we talked about it and there are places where lots of Americans go and you go up in a golf buggy and you say, (American accent) 'Hi Mr Bear! Do you want a cake?' And I didn't want to do that, I wanted the real wild experience. We ended up about four hundred miles south of the North Pole at the top of Norway where it's dark for six months of the year and there was all that side of it as well, and the people we met. So we travelled and I said we might as well photograph it and do a book about it, which is what I've done and then I thought we might as well take a couple of guys and film it as well.

Michael: They are elusive creatures though aren't they, as your film demonstrates, you have to look very hard for them.

Chris: Yes, you get a sense up there, you get it in Alaska as well with the grizzlies, you certainly get it with the polar bears, that they are there. They talk about the bears watching you. Where we landed there are huge hills around you, almost mountains, and you get the sense that, as the planes arrive, 'Yippee meals on wheels are here!' As each little can full of tourists arrives they're up there licking their lips. But you don't see them, they are big wild animals. I mean we spent one whole day filming from a helicopter, some of the most stunning photography, just beautiful, but we only at the end of it saw that bear you saw, all day. There are two and a half thousand up there but they hear it coming.

Michael: What was the closest you got though to a bear?

Chris: Well you're about there, if you probably treble that, that's pretty close Mike.

Michael: And in what situation was it?

Chris: It was swimming, we actually went past it in a little inflatable boat, always a good idea having an inflatable when you're in polar bear country, a good wheeze! We literally went past it and the sound guy said, 'Look!' and suddenly there was this colossal male polar bear and it just ambled down this rock, got into the sea where we were and we thought, 'We're going to die!' And it makes this sort of snorting noise, which is basically back off, stay where you are, go away, otherwise I might eat you. Basically that's what it's doing. And this thing came towards us, and we filmed the whole lot, and it was genuinely one of the greatest afternoons of our life. But after it had gone, it gently went back to the far shore and shook itself like a big massive dog, I mean you're talking about an animal eight times as big as Lennox Lewis, they are colossal you know, it shook itself off, at that point we thought that was just breathtaking and I did a piece to camera and we went back towards the ship and at that moment Eric, a very nice man but an idiot, started to row but the oar touched the bottom and actually we thought we were in about fifty foot of water but we'd actually been in about two foot six! (Laughter) So at any moment Mr Bear could have got up and gone, (jumps up) 'Arrgggghhh!' but mercifully he didn't which is why I'm hear talking to you today.

Michael: Eric was your guide wasn't he?

Chris: He was a waste of space! (Laughter)

Michael: He had a gun?

Chris: He had a gun and there was this wonderful point where he says, 'I have seen many bears, I have luckily never had to shoot one. If it came to it I don't think I could.' (Laughter) One of the weird things was, when we landed the guy went through the various documents, passports, whatever and he said, 'Have you got a shotgun?' And I said, 'Well no, I haven't got a shogun licence.' And he said, 'If you leave town you'll need a gun.' And I went, ' Well I didn't pack one.' You know, in between my socks and my toothbrush. (Laughter) And the guy says, 'Don't worry you can go and get one from the shop.'

Michael: Of course there was a time, as you point out in your book and commentary, that shooting bears was sport and one day a man shot forty bears, one man. They're such majestic creatures, you couldn't kill them.

Chris: No you couldn't and even worse they poisoned a lot, as part of the hunting thing. They poisoned them, poisoned seal meat was left and many of them bit it and swallowed it and weren't caught, ran off and died, the most awful lingering death. But all that has stopped actually, all that has stopped.

Michael: What about the other wildlife up there because it's not exclusively polar bears?

Michael: Well that's not in the book actually...

Chris: That's the other book.

Michael: Another chapter, yes. The Caribou, I thought that was an interesting story. The intrepid explorer?

Chris: Well because I'm a big lad, six foot two or whatever this will surprise you, I'm actually a very gentle, nimble mover if I need to be. (Laughter) I see disbelief in your eyes Parkinson.

Michael: No, I've seen you on a cricket field, I know that what you say is true.

Chris: So we spotted, Martin the photographer and I, spotted this Caribou and it was about one hundred yards away. Now a long time ago we tried to photograph Caribou up in the North West Territories up in Canada and they just kept spooking ,they sense you and they spook. And I said, 'Very quietly get out of the car and close the door gently, don't make a noise and we'll get as close as we can.' So we get out of the car, big long lens and all that, about a hundred yards, we start to creep towards it, we get to about fifty yards and I think, 'It's going to spook take all the pictures you can.' And you know there's that horrible shutter noise but we get about ten yards further, and eventually I reach out and I stroke it! And it just sort of moves off. And I thought that was fantastic, what a tribute to my skills as a stalker. (Laughter) No it's true, I was so impressed, I thought that was really graceful and cool. The next day we saw it in the town with children on its back doing rides! (Laughter) It's true!

Michael: Now how much of this trip, a profound change of direction, was due to a kind of midlife crisis that men go if you like, was that part of it?

Chris: No not really, I mean I've always had that other side to me, I'm still as mad as a trumpet.

Michael: Your dad for instance, who we've talked about before on the programme, that he died recently too, I wonder how much it was again something to escape that kind of grief if you like?

Chris: I think dad actually taught me my love of nature, and my granddad, were very much part of that. And obviously this year without my father has been awful actually, I haven't really even properly grieved, I haven't had time to grieve and I'm not very good at that stuff. And I miss him hugely, I keep wanting to reach out to the phone to have a chat, and I think, 'Oh no, he's not there.' That side of it's tough and Christmas I'm dreading frankly, but I don't think that's affected a change of direction. I'm still doing Millionaire, I'm still doing mad Japanese clips on Tarrant On TV, I'm just doing another aspect of myself as well.

Michael: Millionaire is hugely successful, extraordinarily successful. It leads to that kind of recognition that you get, that familiar catchphrase and things like that.

Chris: Well I've always had that, ever since Tiswas days. When I was doing Tiswas people used to come up to me and say, 'Hello Chris, got a custard pie in your pocket?' Like, yes I always carry one of those. And with the catchphrases off Millionaire, I mean sure, everywhere I go, every day, someone will shout out, 'Hello Chrissie, going to phone a friend?' 'Do you know you're the first person who's ever said that to me!' (Laughter) There was one great one last summer, you know we do the thing with the cheque, 'Here it is but we don't want to give you that.' And 'go fifty-fifty' and 'phone a friend' and all that stuff. So last summer, on a really hot day, I wanted a beer, which is not like me, I wanted a beer and the pub was looking quite busy, but I was so desperate for a drink that I thought I'll go and have a beer no matter how crowded it is or whatever, so I wondered in and a couple of people do a double-take and that's all fine, then the landlord looks at me, you'll know this, there's a sort of look that landlords and taxi drivers and people give you, it's sort of like I know who you are but I'm not going to disturb your peace or whatever. So he's pouring out this pint and my lips are just dribbling, I'm thinking I want this beer so badly, and it gets to the top, there's this big layer of froth, and I'm thinking, 'Oh yes' and he holds it out and says, 'But we don't want to give you that!' (Laughter) And pours it in the slop bucket! (Applause) Oh how I laughed! How I wept! So I shook him warmly by the windpipe... (Laughter)

Michael: You've answered my question, that's why you went in search of the polar bears, you meet a nicer class of person.

Chris: I think you do actually.

Michael: So what else have you got, you've another trip planned haven't you?

Chris: I'm hoping next year, if this is successful, to do either orang-utans in Sumatra or I'd love to do the gorillas in Rwanda. It's a good life mate.

Michael: Chris Tarrant thank you very much indeed.

Chris: Thank you.

(Applause)

Polar Bear Facts

Polar bears are well-adapted to severe cold. Winter temperatures in the far north often plunge to -40° F or -50° F and can stay that way for days or even weeks. In January and February, the average temperature in the high Arctic is -29° F.

The Arctic stays black and fiercely cold for months on end. In the High Arctic, the sun sets in October and does not rise again until late February.

The word "Arctic" comes from the ancient Greek Arktikos, or "country of the great bear." Though the Greeks had no knowledge of the polar bear, they named the region after the constellation Ursus Major, the Great Bear, found in the Northern Sky.

A thick layer of blubber (up to 4.5 inches thick) provides polar bears with such excellent insulation that their body temperature and metabolic rate remain the same even at -34°F.

A polar bear's body temperature is 98.6°, which is average for mammals.

On bitterly cold days with fierce winds, polar bears dig out a shelter in a snow bank and curl up in a tight ball to wait out the storm.

When curled up in a ball, polar bears sometimes cover their muzzles — which radiate heat — with one of their thickly furred paws.

Polar bears know how to pack on the fat: A single bear can consume 100 pounds of blubber at one sitting.

The polar bear's compact ears and small tail also help prevent heat loss.

Polar bears have two layers of fur for further protection from the cold.

Polar bears have more problems with overheating than they do with cold. Even in very cold weather, they quickly overheat when they try to run.

Polar bears generally walk at a leisurely pace to keep from overheating. When a Norwegian scientist, Nils Oritsland, studied a polar bear on a treadmill, he found that his subject would move off for short periods of time at higher speeds and would sometimes lie down and refuse to walk at all!