While looking for polar bears near Barter Island, Alaska, the captain of our small aluminum boat spotted this bear on an ice floe beyond the ice reef. We motored, then drifted toward the bear to get this photo. The bear remained standing on the floe as we drifted past, gazing into the distance beyond us. It seemed an eerie scene of this lone bear on a disappearing floe, symbolic of the possible future fate of these animals in the face of climate change.