Polar Bear and Two Cubs

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Winter 2020

Polar Bear and Two Cubs
photograph
Richard Mittleman, MD

From Dr Mittleman:
“I took this photograph in 2017 in a very remote area of northern Manitoba, Canada. I was staying at a small lodge owned by 2 Native Canadian brothers near the Wapusk National Park. Wapusk is the Cree name for ‘white bear,’ and the brothers built the lodge in this location because they knew there were dens in the area where polar bears hibernated and gave birth. Once the polar bears leave their dens, sometime between mid-February and mid-March, the mothers take their cubs to Hudson Bay, where they can hunt seals on the ice packs.

“The day I was fortunate enough to photograph this mom and her cubs it was snowing and -40°F. I stood out in the weather for 5 hours photographing while the cubs slept, nursed, and played. There were guests who had been at the lodge for 2 weeks and went home never having seen a bear.”

Dr Mittleman is a retired Pediatrician from the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. He was the first and, at that time, only Pediatric Resident at the Los Angeles Medical Center in California when the resident program was first approved. More of his work can be seen on the cover and at gon2foto.net. Email: gon2foto@verizon.net.