Polar Bears

Photographer Scott Dickerson flies out over the Chukchi Sea and finds some bears.

Slowly I learned the details of the assignment as I packed my bags. Nine polar bears had been sighted swimming in the Chukchi Sea many miles off Alaska’s Arctic coast. Now there was a rare opportunity to fly with the Coast Guard and polar bear biologists on a survey to see firsthand the polar bears plight as the sea ice they depend on melts away beneath them.