Taqqiq is the Polar that appears in The Teddy Bear Times & Friends Issue 279 released 6th December 2025.
1950s Chiltern White Musical Standing Bear - Non Working music box
She comes wearing a hand knitted capped sleeved cardigan. KNitted from a acrylic/wool mixed yarn
Height: 13 inches ( 33cm)
Joints: Unjointed standing bear , she can stand without support
Plush: Balding - Once had Creamy white mohair with inner ears, paws and snout of clipped creamy white mohair - please see photos,
Stuffing: Head is excelsior filled body and limbs are stuffed with cotton sub
Eyes: Original amber and black plastic safety, a little scuffed
Nose: Black realistic moulded plastic safety
Mouth: She has no mouth and there is no evidence of her having one.
Paws: Balding- please see photos. You will see on her left sole remnants of possible previous owner's initials
Taqqiq still has her original blue, NON_WORKING music box, which once played Brahms Lullaby (it is written on the box)
Below is a section from my article which describes what TLC she needed when I rescued her to make her adoption ready.
Please feel free to ask any questions
Taqqiq
In the Inuktitut language of Eskimos this means Moon or Month which is based on the lunar cycle.
Taqqiq is woven into traditional Inuit religious practice.
This rescued bear has been named after Taqqiq, a polar bear character in the novel Ice Whale by Jean Craighead George. She is a wise old female polar bear who guides her cubs through treacherous Arctic landscapes. Taqqiq represents strength, resilience, and a deep connection to nature.
There is also a character of the same name, in the The Seekers, Kallik’s brother. It would appear this is a popular and traditional name for a Polar Bear - you can see how I wander around Google.
This rescued bear is more suited to the image of the wise female bear.
These Chiltern bears all have card inserts in the sole of their foot pads. Taqqiq’s are a little buckled and one is quite damaged. Having opened up the teddy with a view to top up the stuffing and to investigate the music box I went the whole hog and carefully removed the cotton sub stuffing and reinforced the card insoles with another piece of card to support the existing ones and then carefully replaced the original stuffing with some additional cotton stuffing.
She also had a very small fraying hole beginning to show near her left eye which was given a few reinforcing darned stitches. Again like Kallik, the seam to the right of the snout was a little loose and needed a few stitches.
Her left ear also needed attention. The inner ear section was coming away from the head and was re-attached, the top seam of the ear was closed and the back corner section of the ear also required some stitches to re-secure it to the head.
Both of the seams attaching her arms to her body, needed attending to. The rushed “mummy repair” she had previously received was undone and then resewn with a ladder stitch. These early repairs are quite often done under the pressure of a watching child who wants Teddy back in their arms within a moment, a lovely thought that a bear that cannot be parted from a loving squeeze or being dragged off to the bottom of the garden in search of the fairies.
Taqqiq has evidence she has travelled, there are remnants of her owner's initials on the sole of her left foot.
As Taqqiq is balding a gentle brush was all I could do to freshen her up, as she was mostly emptied of her stuffing I was also able to brush her internally, helping to remove years of dust and dirt from the weave of the fabric, so in effect she had a dry bath.
Taqqiq was re-stuffed using the original sub stuffing and her excelsior head stuffing was topped up lifting her snout to give her a prouder stance.
