How a bear claw became a grisly token of Arctic survival

How a bear claw became a grisly token of Arctic survival

How a bear claw became a grisly token of Arctic survival 3 Minutes Read 532 Words EN Over a century ago, a team of researchers set out to establish the first research station on Canada’s Ellesmere Island. Then tragedy struck. A typewritten object label accompanying this claw in the National Geographic archive gives the date that the bear it belonged to was shot: April 11, 1884. "Many members of the expedition had already died from starvation at this time," it reads. Rebecca Hale, National Geographic By Rachel Slade Published July 9, 2026 As large as a human finger and as sharp as a needle—that’s how one descendant of Adolphus Greely describes a claw from the bear that saved his great-great-granddad’s life. In 1881, seven years before Greely became a founding member of the National Geographic Society, the Army lieutenant set out with two dozen men to establish an Arctic research station on the far northern reaches of Canada’s Ellesmere Island . Greely’s was one of many American and Europ…