Alaska Terminal Polar Bear

I had finished a two-week raft trip down the Tatshenshini and Alsek Rivers  and was in the Juneau airport awaiting my flight home when I encountered the polar bear under glass. This had been my second Tatshenshini trip, and in just the 8 years since my first, the glacial retreat along the river was noticeable. Further north where the polar bears roamed, the ice was also thinning and shrinking, leaving the bears no where to go -- except perhaps to live under Plexiglas. The whole peculiar diorama of  this once-living bear now stuffed and framed by a trash can, courtesy phone, restrooms and a photo mural of its melting habitat seemed to say a lot about our  inadvertent  attitude toward nature.