Paula Bear spotted roaming around Festivals

This summer we have been busy taking the ‘Save The Arctic’ campaign around the summer festival circuit. So far we have been to Nova, Latitude and WOMAD. Next up is the Wilderness Festival.

Our mission was to sign people up to become Arctic Defenders and to campaign to make the Arctic a protected zone in the same way that we managed to protect Antarctica which was declared a World Park in 1991.

To do this we created a vintage explorers camp in the style of Captain Scott the officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions in the early 1900’s. This setting allowed people to be photographed dressed as Arctic explorers and have their pictures taken and sent to others around the world. It was amazing to see people dressed up throwing snowballs at each other in this setting whilst festival goers walking by were wearing sombreros and shorts!

The famous polar explorer Jim McNeill, who was involved in filming for Frozen Planet, was also at the camp and he shared his stories and experiences of the Arctic with our visiters. Other storytellers shared their stories with the crowd. Some were educational and some were bewildering fictional tales of princesses and polar bears, which the kids loved.

On the other side of our camp we built a life-sized ‘Ice cave’ for Paula the Polar bear to live in. It was great to see the faces of people when they saw a huge ice cave with a moving polar bear inside, it definitely was a head turner! We also had face masks depicting four key Arctic species for the kids to colour in and wear around the festivals. Our face painting corner was also very popular.

So look out for us this weekend at Wilderness and we’ll also be at the Thames festival on the 8th and 9th of September. See you soon?

P.s. If we don't see you this festival season, you can join the movement for a protected Arctic here.