Polar bear sightings

The winter of 1917/1918 is most often referred to as the Great Frost Winter in Iceland. It was the coldest winter in the region during the 20th century. It was remarkable for the presence of sea ice around the country, especially around the western and northern part of the country. Along with the sea ice followed an unusually large number of polar bear sightings in northern Iceland. Sources say that at least 27 bears made their way to land and one of them at Langanes peninsula. 

It was on a Friday, January the 18th, when Kristján Jónsson a farmer at Eldjárnsstaðir went to get water from the well near the house. He became quite startled when he saw a polar bear right ahead walking towards him. Kristján started running back to the house and the polar bear would probably have caught him if it weren't for the two dogs in the house that interrupted the bear. But this turned into quite the chase around the house, both inside and outside. More and more people became involved in the chase as they became aware of the bear and what was happening. The bear almost caught another man that fell while running away but again one of the dogs saved him trying to attack the bear. Unfortunately the dog didn't survive this combat. 

While the bear was roaming around outside looking for prey, the farmers were inside trying to get their freezing guns to work. The chase finally ended when Jón Jóhannesson shot the bear, he was lucky that the distance between him and the animal was three meters because the gun choked three times before the shot was fired. When the bear was inspected afterwards it was clear that it was starved, it was 1,63 m tall but only weighed 52 kg and the intestines were empty. 

In the year of 2010 a young polar bear was sighted by Sævarland in Þistilfjörður. Svanhvít Geirsdóttir, a farmer at Sævarland, saw the bear only 10 m away from her and ran into her house and straight to the attic. She called the police to let them know about the polar bear and the search started. The bear was killed the same day by a farmer at Ósland that didn't even know about the bear, but it was getting quite close to his sheep.