Page 42 - 2003 SVALBARD, NORWAY

necessary except as a presence in the area (for political purposes),

the men on the station often relax, drink a little and play
contentious and raucous card games. One fellow went outside to

check some equipment and when he turned to come back inside
the stationhouse, he realized that there was a polar bear between

him & the front door. When he tried to go around to back of the
building, he discovered another bear. Feeling pretty desperate, he
ducked into a tiny storage shed and slammed the door. One of the

bears was right behind and began scratching and clawing at the
door and the sides of the shed.

Meanwhile, he was screaming and yelling and gesticulating wildly

through the windows to his buddies who continued drinking and
playing cards, laughing and talking. Though his attempts at

catching their attention grew more and more frantic, he made no
headway at all. Outside the shed, the bears were also making
more and more determined efforts to get inside the shed with

him! The man became quite unnerved realizing that he was never
going to survive if he couldn’t get some help.

Suddenly, he remembered that there was a reserve short-wave

radio set housed in the shed and he quickly got it ready to use. All
the while hearing the scratching and tearing of the bears, he kept

attempting to reach someone for help. Amazingly enough, the
first person to answer him was a guy in Chile in South America.
Luckily, he spoke English so the beleaguered Norseman was able

to describe his plight. The Chilean radioed Oslo which then
radioed Bear Island, reaching the partying men inside the main

stationhouse.

The radioman in Oslo asked, “Is everything all right there? “Yes,
course” was the answer. Then Oslo asked, “Aren’t you missing

someone?” They then realized that their buddy was indeed not