Experience: I fought off a polar bear with a saucepan

I pulled back the tent flap and there it was, an arm's length away. So I reached for the closest weapon to hand - my mother's old porridge-encrusted potI've had 35 close encounters with polar bears during my time as an explorer and campaigner for the Arctic Ocean. There's always that surge of adrenaline when you see one - that sense of: "Oh God, it's happening."I've learned how to deal with bears over the years. Although I take a shotgun and special cartridges - they're to scare them off - I've never hit a bear with a bullet. But there was one occasion when the closest thing to hand turned out to be my mother's saucepan. Continue reading...