Back in 2001, Pen Hadow and I traveled to the North Pole (北极). One morning we'd just taken down our tent and started skiing (滑雪). Pen was in front, and I was following him. Suddenly I got a strange feeling that something was behind us. I stopped, looked back and saw a polar bear, walking towards us.

　　Pen and I planned to stay where we were, try and look big, and frighten it away. Pen had a shotgun that we'd bought in Russia. That was his job. My job was to look big and to take off my skis, hold the skis in the air, make lots of noise, and frighten away the bear. Pen raised the gun and fired into the air. However, it jammed and failed to work.

　　The bear was walking towards us. Pen tried again, but again it didn't work. Then he walked towards the bear, and I thought, "Wow, Pen's gone completely mad. He's going to get eaten. What should I do？"

　　I thought maybe I could throw a ski at it or stab (刺) it with a ski pole or something. Suddenly, the bear stopped. Pen stopped. Bang. The gun went off in the air. There was a big cloud of smoke that I think surprised Pen and me more than it surprised the bear. The animal looked up, looked down, turned around and walked off. Pen turned round and said, "Quick, get the camera and take a photograph，" and that was when suddenly I felt really nervous. I couldn't even undo the zip on our bag.

That was the morning of the second day of this journey. We were out there for two months-fiftynine days, but we never saw another bear