Michael Bublé claims a near-death running experience in Manitoba

Canadian singing icon and proclaimed King of Christmas, Michael Bublé, claims he had a near-death running experience in Churchill, Man.On Jan. 15, Bublé appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show, where former American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson asked the singer about a drunken late-night run gone wrong with Canadian actor Barry Pepper while shooting a movie in Canada’s tundra.Bublé said he had just finished filming the 2003 survival drama The Snow Walker and was celebrating with the cast. During the celebration, Pepper and Bublé decided to race down to the beach. But they didn’t realize what was waiting for them there.

“A guy that lived there just started swearing at us and just screaming, I mean, screaming bloody murder,” Bublé said. “We did not realize we were running to our certain death, because there were polar bears all down the beach.”“Sometimes I wonder how close I was to being like a little polar bear lunch,” he joked. “They are the most aggressive—God, but they are so cuddly.” Clarkson went on to reference the cute bears from Coca-Cola commercials.

As this story may not seem “Bublé-vable,” Churchill annually reports more than 300 polar bear incidents or encounters, so much so that they even built a polar bear holding facility (which they call the Polar Bear Jail), which captures and relocates troublesome or dangerous bears. Before it was built in 1983, polar bears that were considered dangerous were shot.Canada is home to two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population, and the Hudson Bay town of Churchill is a common feeding ground. The animals move toward the coast, and sometimes into town, from areas farther inland to hunt seals from the sea ice during the fall when temperatures drop.In 2014, Churchill’s Polar Bear Marathon had to alter the course because the bears got a little too close. Because of the danger from the cold and bears, each runner is assigned a support vehicle that carries food, extra clothing and a bear watcher equipped with a rifle, in case of an emergency.

posted Saturday January 20th
by Running Magazine