The Knitting Fiend

I saw a photo at Fusion Knitting that took be back in time! It was a photograph of “Shoulder Eez”.

Now, you may all wonder, “Why would padding to prevent bruising when shooting guns give Lucia a flashback?

Well, sometime ago, my husband was spent 8 weeks living on an ice breaker doing research. As anyone who has worked for the goverment knows, government sub-contractors are vigilant about safety training. Working on the frozen sea has an unusual danger:

“They seem to have attracted a bear to the ship,” he said. “The same bear has been seen near the ship for several days now and they’re trying to shoo him away. They’ll have a helicopter drop soon so they’re hoping that will scare him off.”

The “He” quoted in the article is my Jim. When he says “bear”, he means the polar variety. And, evidently, polar bears tend to think scientists, or anything that moves, might make a good snack.

So, Jim underwent “Polar Bear Safety Training”.

This mostly involved learning to make sure that when research parties left the ship to tend to instruments out on the ice, they took along someone to “ride shot gun” on the back of a snow mobile. Each scientist was taught to watch out for bears, and shoot them if necessary.

Jim had to learn to shoot a gun!

No, Jim had absolutely never shot a gun before, and this was a big one. Big enough to shoot and kill polar bears, …just in case.

Luckily, “just in case” never happened, and none of the scientists ever had to shoot a bear. (Although, Jim reports, one jokester once said “Look bear!” and some other trigger happy scientist turned and shot some equipment. People quickly learned to stop with the tricks.)

Still, 120 lbs Jim had to learn to shoot and practice before heading up north. I wish I’d known about those pads; his training left him pretty darn bruised!