ASIREN CUTS THROUGH the frozen air. I look over at Doug as we press through the sideways sleet. ‘The siren signals voluntary curfew,’ he says. ‘Mainly so kids know it’s time to come home.’ The air-raid-style alarm also indicates the start of dawn-todusk armed patrols scouring the streets for polar bears in the remote Canadian town of Churchill.
As with all apex predators, a polar bear’s presence is felt even when it’s not there. Humans gingerly step around the ghost of its shape, eyes cast over their shoulders, the ever-present chance of its appearance shaping day-to-day existence.
Boreal storms may have blown away the bears’ hubcap-sized pawprints on Churchill’s snowy shores, but hazard signs alert me to their preferred path along the beach. Unlocked cars on the streets point not only, I learn, to an enviable lack of crime, but also to the need for panic rooms for pedestrians in case of surprise charges from the biggest carnivore to walk the Earth.
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September 2019
 
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