The world of the polar bear / Norbert Rosing

The World of the Polar Bear is an unsurpassed photographic tribute to one of nature's most compelling and beautiful animals and to the world in which it lives. Here, in an unforgiving ecosystem, animals and birds come together in a delicate balance of life. Each year, thousands of people from around the world travel to Churchill, Manitoba, to see polar bears, northern lights, whales and the annual bird migrations.

But the king of the region is the polar bear, or Nanook, as it is known by the indigenous people. Superbly adapted for life in one of the most severe landscapes on Earth, the polar bear holds the record as the world's largest terrestrial carnivore: the female weighs up to 770 pounds, while the male can tip the scales at 1,500 pounds and stand 10 feet tall on its hind legs.

Norbert Rosing is uniquely qualified to write about polar bears. His fascination with them began in 1983 on his first visit to Canada. After a 1,000-mile train trip from Winnipeg to Churchill, he arrived to find that a sudden arctic storm had transformed the town into an icy desert. Not only did his film freeze and break, but his camera stopped functioning permanently.

However, Rosing did see his first polar bear. Fascinated by this magnificent white mammal, he now returns to the Arctic up to three times a year to study and photograph polar bears, and he has come to regard Churchill as his home away from home.

Norbert Rosing lives in Germany, but since 1988, he has been a frequent visitor to the coastal region of Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba. As well as photographing polar bears and the Arctic, he is a dedicated photographer of African wildlife, old-growth forests and the national parks of eastern Germany. He has received numerous awards for his work and is a frequent contributor to magazines and books, including Yellowstone (Firefly Books 1998). His work is featured regularly in National Geographic.