Toklo

In Inuit culture, the word Toklo means, he who is spontaneous and versatile, appropriate for the polar bear.

It was a chilly November day on the tundra, the mercury dipped close to -30° Celsius. We found this polar bear napping on a frozen pond next to the shoreline as content as can be. The bear was sleeping when we arrived. After a short while and virtually no movement from the bear, my guide Alex gave me the option to move on and find another bear or stick with this one. Since we had this bear in a beautiful, clean white snow-covered setting, I opted to stay. My hope was that eventually the bear would wake up and go through a nice stretching routine and potentially move around. The decision would eventually pay off some four and a half hours later! With only about thirty to forty minutes of daylight left, the bear eventually woke up and proceeded to go through a splendid routine of stretching that lasted about ten minutes. Ultimately, the bear got up and wandered off across the frozen tundra under the cover of night as darkness blanketed the land.