A hundred years ago this month, the cover of Popular Mechanics for January 1943 showed a self-explanatory transportation idea that, for some reason, never caught on. For the really big loads that sled dogs couldn’t handle, simply replace the dogs with polar bears! They’re fast and they’re strong, and they could haul sleds of unimaginable size.

“While the Eskimo is, by necessity, too busy with hunting and fishing to attempt training the bear in a serious way,” the manager of a fur company saw real potential in the idea. Of course, “in selecting the team, care would have to be exercised in eliminating animals showing  predisposition to temper.”

So even though the Inuit who had lived there since time immemorial didn’t seize the idea–simply because they were too busy–the fur company can send a man in to tackle the job.

The idea never caught on, and we’re guessing because the man sent in to tackle the job wound up as a tasty snack for one of the bears.