This is a painting of a scene which might have taken place in 1778, when Captain James Cook took his ships, Resolution and Discovery, north of the Arctic Circle into the Arctic Ocean between the Siberian and Alaskan coasts. The primary purpose of his expedition was to find the Northwest Passage, but he was stopped in his endeavor by huge ice fields at latitude 70 degrees, 44' north.

Watching Cook's ships is a polar bear, with his long, snake-like neck extended in a typical manner. With his modern weapons, man is intruding upon the bear's domain for the first time; perhaps the bear senses the change to come. It is August, and there is a layer of fog over much of the horizon, with a touch of blue sky breaking through.

- Fred Machetanz