‘The place will be crawling with them,’ our expedition leader Felicity Aston MBE said in reference to polar bears before we left on a nine-day ski and camping trip in the icy wilds of Svalbard above the Arctic Circle.
Polar bears outnumber humans there (3,000 vs 2,552) and the prospect of sleeping in brutally cold temperatures surrounded by them filled me with a slight feeling of dread, and, after a quick Google, I discovered the last fatal mauling on a