What Does it Take to Film One of Nature’s Rarest Hunts: Polar Bear Hunting a Seal?
- Always Build
- Sep 2
- 2 min read
There’s a shot that almost no one has ever pulled off: a polar bear hunting a seal, up close, over winter in Western Hudson Bay.
Netflix Calls
We’d tried once before. We’d failed. We got close to bears. The seals? Never. They’re highly skittish for good reason—everything wants to eat them—and we just couldn’t get near.
Fast forward: Netflix calls. Same brief. Bigger expectations. Capture a polar bear hunting a seal—up close, in Western Hudson Bay for a series called "Predators".
This is not easy terrain. The hunting happens out on the frozen bay, across broken up ice that’s nearly impossible to move through. You can’t follow on foot. Snowmobiles are limited.
Helicopters help, but only to a point. It’s a logistics challenge first, a wildlife challenge second, and a creative challenge throughout.
Our base camp was Seal River Heritage Lodge, run by the team at Churchill Wild. They handled support and operations at an elite level: luxury lodge, scouting teams, heli, and air support. Total professionals.
Our job was the same: get the shot. The one few have ever pulled off.
Polar Bear Hunting a Seal
That’s when Adam Pauls, CEO of Churchill Wild, reminded us of something from a shared elementary school experience: sitting in a classroom watching a National Film Board series on traditional Inuit hunting. Tuktu. One episode showed how Inuit would approach a seal like a seal—on their belly, slowly, over hours, mimicking its movements.
We tried it. No joke—it worked. Four hours of crawling got us within breathing distance. Full-frame shots of the seal’s face. Unbelievable.
Big lesson: High-end storytelling often depends on more than budget and tech. It takes cultural knowledge, patience, and the willingness to try something… anything… to make it work.
Massive credit to the entire team on the ground. They showed us what true ambition looks like on a project like this—and reminded us that sometimes the oldest techniques still outperform the newest toys.
Comments