During the filming of “Nanook of the North”, in the winter of 1921, we decided to take a scene of a white bear hunt at close quarters on land.
In a genuine film like ours, where one must take “close ups” of wild animals, the difficulty lies not only in approaching them sufficiently near so as not to have to use telescopic lens, but also in keeping the animals more or less on the same spot in front of the camera.
Consequently, after studying the matter carefully, we concluded that the only way we could film the white bear hunt was to find in the early spring a “she” bear with cubs in her den.
The idea was that the bear would refuse to leave her young, would make a stand right away and give battle on the spot, thereby allowing the cameraman to crank away to his heart’s content. We sent, accordingly, a few Eskimos to scour the country. After a few weeks they reported having found a bear asleep in a snow bank under a cliff on the seashore, about seventy-five miles north from where we were. We were certain that the animal was a “she” bear, as the males do not hibernate but roam all winter on the ice far out to sea.