Nature might as well have put a tutu on a taipan. These baby-faced killers grow as large as 800 kilograms, can scent prey 32 kilometres away, hunt it with near-infallible precision and pulverise it with the strongest bite pressure of any bear species - including Mal's pale-in-comparison pals over in BC. There's a reason Canadian bear lore states: "If it's white, goodnight." You do not want to be this bear's picnic.
What you do want is a safe, ethical opportunity to admire the sheer majesty of these most awesome of creatures close-up, in Churchill, polar bear capital of the world. The little town of 850 in the frozen north of Manitoba sits on the Hudson Bay shoreline, where every northern autumn right about now, hundreds of polar bears converge on their way to a winter-long feast of seal blubber on the frozen sea. While they wait for the ice to form, Churchill becomes party central for frolicking and tussling bears - one of the world's most extraordinary wildlife events.