Mi amor, la osa blanca

In 1960 Shentalinski was sent as a radio station operator to Wrangel Island, beyond the Polar Circle, where he remained for three years. The island represented for him a true school and the most important experience of his life, to the point that he liked to return, whenever possible. One of those trips took place in 1972, as part of a scientific expedition to study polar bears. The expedition was limited to two people: Shentalinski and Stanislav Bélikov, today one of the greatest experts in the study of the polar bear. And the difficulties of the expedition attest to the dialogue held in the Department of Transportation when the two expedition members requested a snowmobile. When giving the dimensions of the vehicle, two hundred by sixty by forty, the official replied: 'The exact dimensions of a coffin.' My love, the white bear is the diary that Shentalinski wrote during those days, complete with more than twenty photographs. The book is a song to some animals, a landscape and an ecosystem about to disappear. And a beautiful plea in favor of the radical transformation of the human being's relationship with nature.