Advice for your 30s from Wapusk National Park

Every body is a beach body.

Take the beautiful and blubbery beluga for example! These chunky cetaceans would never miss a summer beach day with their friends in Hudson Bay, despite weighing up to 1,500 kgs. They know that their fat acts as both an energy reserve and a wonderful insulator for those cold arctic nights.

Sometimes, you have to put yourself first, just like a polar bear.

After a successful spring courtship on the sea ice, female bears return to land with a fertilized egg but halt its growth before continuing the pregnancy. For the next six months, with no ice in sight they mostly fast. Only if the polar bear maintains a healthy amount of fat throughout the summer months will the egg implant and the pregnancy continue. This process is called delayed implantation and helps ensure that both the mother and cubs remain healthy until returning to the sea ice for spring seal hunting.

The polar bear knows when it’s time to relax and conserve their energy.

Throughout the winter, female polar bears create a maternity den as a safe place to give birth and bulk up their newborn cubs while waiting out the harshest parts of the winter. Finding an ideal area in a peat bank near the water, a polar bear will dig a den or reuse a previous one, sometimes with more than one chamber. They let nature do the rest of the work, with snowdrifts filling over the opening. When they emerge in the early spring, they head out onto the sea ice for more hunting and a good meal.