Hey all… time to snoop through Noah’s diary again. Why? Because we can.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025, 10:15am: ’Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house my wife and my kid are arguing about stupid polar bears.
I guess it’s all Ma’s fault for telling Ursula about our family history with polar bears and how a polar bear killed my Grandpa Helmeyer when he and his buddies were ice fishing up in Churchill and then at the burial another polar bear showed up and Ma took her Viking vengeance with a big ol’ bowie knife and swore there would always be enmity between our family and the polar bears.
Ruth doesn’t believe it but I told her: I was there… at the funeral, I mean. Ma really did dispatch that bear and scream bloody murder about bears in general. No wonder she’s not scared of all the gators that hang out in her backyard in Florida these days. Compared to polar bears, gators are actually pretty docile. I mean, the pro-polar bear activists insist that polar bears don’t hunt humans but even the government says that they do. And sure, governments lie, but I think in the case of warnings to tourists in norther parks they’re telling the truth so as to avoid lawsuits.
And even the New York Times reports on polar bears eating people in Alaska.
Whereas Florida gators might eat a person who is dumb enough to swim in the swamps or unlucky enough to fall in, but even that’s pretty rare. And gators don’t stalk people on land.
I think gators are pretty lazy, actually. Certainly compared with polar bears they’re opportunistic and not deliberately vicious.
Still: I told her we’re not coming down to Florida to visit with an 8 year old and a baby until she fences her yard. There’s a reason all her neighbors have those giant baseball-style chainlink fences around everything. Roofs, too… I dunno if the gators can climb that well but I think the chain-link yard roofs keep the pythons out or whatever, too.
Anyway, Ruth’s mad ‘cause Ursula sassed back at her when she insisted we shouldn’t exterminate the polar bears and Ursula pointed out that Ruth’s never seen a polar bear in real life, only on TV. Well, neither has Ursula, but her Granny Thorsen is obviously somewhat of an expert on polar bears.
Ruth thinks she’s gonna make Ursula research “the realities of polar bear population decline” over the Christmas break but I told her I think that’s a bad idea and she should drop it. But what do I know? I’m just the guy who gets text messages from my mother ever week about how the polar bears are now adapting to use glacier ice to kill things from instead of sea ice and how there’s a polar bear boom in Southern Greenland where she grew up. Oh, and how the government of Canada says that Indigenous knowledge holder folks say the polar bears are increasing in population. I got badgered to start a petition to correct that through more hunting permits and I had to explain to Ma that here in Victoria I would be strung up and tarred and feathered if I went door to door asking people to sign a petition to shoot more cuddly cola salesmen.
She should know that being as she used to live here.
Ugh… so I get stuck in the middle but that’s fine. Ma’s started sending Ursula those same anti-polar bear links so Ruth’s gonna get a whole lotta what she’s trying to counteract.
And like I said to Ruth: you’re a city girl. Maybe just maybe the people who’ve actually encountered polar bears have a more informed opinion. (I didn’t tell her that just because she’s a teacher and has access to the science textbooks we give second graders doesn’t mean she knows more than people with lived experience… I’d be sleeping on the sofa for a year if I dared say that!)
I will say that this is a case where it’s kinda too bad we don’t have a zoo here. I think there was one in Beacon Hill Park a hundred years ago but by the time we moved here in the ‘80s it was just the petting zoo left. Not that I think animals in tiny cages is a good thing but maybe seeing a polar bear up close and how huge they are would be… I dunno… instructive?
Whatever. I keep my mouth shut. I just hope the topic doesn’t come up at Christmas Eve dinner this year because I’m sure Duke will have things to say and they will be more moderate than what my mother would say because Duke does believe in conservation so as to have more animals to hunt in the future, but still. At least I can get Duke to agree to not bring the topic up himself for the sake of Christmas peace, but if Ruth starts a fight, well… all bets are off.
Ursula can be bribed into silence with a big of Twizzlurz, so we’re good there.
The problem is Ruth will want to spout off about it, especially when the video call with Ma starts. And if by some minor miracle Ruth doesn’t bring it up, Ma 100% will.
Stupid polar bears gotta ruin everything.
