White Bears, White Men and the Rule over the Northeast Passage

The Northeast Passage — the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of Siberia — has always been a border region and place of encounter. This article examines encounters between humans and polar bears in this zone as recorded in travel accounts from five centuries and argues that these depictions of polar bears shape the image of the Arctic to this day. The travelogues created a topos of brave polar heroes threatened by monstrous predators. Yet the invaders here were the humans encroaching on polar bears' habitat at the edge of the pack ice, and in most cases they were also the ones doing the killing. Explorers hunted bears for food, for their pelts or as trophies, and the huge predator was stylized as a symbol of the inaccessible North. Admired for its superhuman physical capabilities, the bear also symbolized the deadly dangers of a journey across the icy sea. It compounded the human fear of perishing in a hostile environment with the archetypal fear of being eaten. However, within this frame of human-polar bear relations, the descriptions reveal some notable differences. While Western European travellers heavily thematized this obsession with killing and sometimes capturing polar bears, Russian sailors and polar bear hunters, who were more familiar with the fauna and climate of the Arctic Ocean, had a much more casual attitude. Thus, polar bears are mentioned far less frequently in their accounts, even though Russian scientists, hunters and traders exploring the Siberian seas outnumbered Western expeditions looking for a trade route to East Asia many times over. But like the Western search for the Northeast Passage, the Russian expeditions were exclusive and overwhelmingly male endeavours that became a demonstration of masculine strength and social status.