Polar Bear with cub - Black and white wall art

Few wall pieces feel as sweet over a bed as this Polar Bear drawing. The same animal illustration lends a comforting presence whether it hangs as nursery wall art or brightens a living room. The tender scene of a baby polar bear beside his mother was inspired by a photograph from artist Greg Harvey.

Here is the story behind that photo: each November, tourists pour into Churchill, Manitoba to watch polar bears. Once the Bay freezes, the bears can finally head out onto the ice for a well-earned seal buffet. At that very moment, 60 kilometers south of Churchill in Wapusk National Park, female polar bears are giving birth to one to three cubs, each no larger than a one-pound stick of butter. Come February and March, those little fluff balls have reached roughly the size of a small dog. Until then they have lived in a snow den eight to ten feet beneath the surface, and when the time is right, mom pushes her head out through the top of the den so the babies can meet the world for the very first time.

Photographers like myself keep watch 100 meters off, hoping to catch this astonishing sight. Some days we stare at a hole in the snow for eight hours at a stretch, day after day, with nothing to show for it, and temperatures of -40 C to -50 C make those waits brutal. Yet when the polar bear moms and their babies finally appear, they warm our hearts so thoroughly that the cold nearly slips our minds. We stay extremely careful all the same, because -50 C can scorch exposed skin in seconds and bring on frostbite within a few minutes.