[Leica] National Geographic

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

William G. Lamb, III posted:
Subject: [Leica] National Geographic


> "Just thought that it would be interesting to note that the latest
National
> Geographic issue has an article covering the Arctic Snow Fox.
> > Almost all of the images were taken using an R8 and the Leica super-tele
> APO lens.
> > http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature4/index.html "
> > Good stuff!<<<,,

Oh well using a super tele to shoot arctic white fox isn't any big deal,
hell that's piece of cake near Mould Bay :-) in the high Arctic.  And super
safe with a tele! ;-)

March 1967. Mould Bay.
I was shooting a documentary on the Polar Continental Shelf Project with
temps running between -55 warming up to -25 on warm days. That's below
freezing faharenite . Kind of cool. :-)

I was on my way to the flight line when across the snow I saw "wild life!"
WOW! A white arctic fox running in my direction, so I shot a few frames with
a 200 mm lens then switched to a wider lens.as he kept running towards me.
Now I'm thinking ... Jeeeeeeeess how lucky can I get with this little guy
coming right to me. :-)  Lots more frames as he closed in.

And as I made the last frames with a 35mm lens, that changed very quickly
when I realized he was in attack mode as he's biting and ripping at my wind
pants and jumping up and biting wherever he could get his teeth into my
clothing. My hands were well covered with big mitts and fur backing, that
saved them from his teeth. However, his saliva was all over the mitts after
he'd try to bite. Finally this wasn't fun any more so I kicked it as hard as
I could and damned if he didn't come back at full attack.

Now I'm beginning to think, this little guy meant serious damage and I was
at least 200 yards from the flight line and alone

Finally I connected a good one and dumped him over a couple of times and
started to run as fast as I could to the aircraft hangers. I found out one
of the flight engineers had also been attacked but managed to get inside the
hanger, then it came after me and was now in the direction of the main camp.

Chief called to main office told them what happened and be ready. They were
and shot it as it was going for someone else.

A radio call to the south about this incident and they wanted the body right
away as they, scientific types, figured the animal was probably rabid and it
should be checked immediately.

The big concern was.... "Did anyone have broken skin due to any bites?" No,
but I explained about the saliva on the mitts and having wiped my nose while
the mitts were still moist. Unfortunately I'd had my nose frost bitten a few
times and it had developed a cracks in the skin and would open from rubbing
it.  So now if the animal was rabid... just maybe I might be infected!

So me and animal are out of there in a C130 transport aircraft back to
Ottawa. We, the animal did have rabies. Me? After several doctors and
specialists discussed my situation the chances were, even though I'd
possibly rubbed the fox saliva into the cracks on my nose it was not likely
I'd been infected.

However they very seriously explained the symptoms to expect if I were and
what to do if they should occur any time during the next 6 months. After
that I was home free. Let me say 6 months later to the day we had the
damndest party you can imagine. :-)

And you've all heard the story .. "if your pictures aren't good enough. It's
because you're not close enough!" Let me rebut that idea.. "To hell with it
as sometimes close is toooooo close!" :-(

So you see it's a piece of cake with the super teles! :-)

 ted