captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> pelley: the poverty rate for children in america may soon hit 25%. so many kids are homeless, school buses now stop at cheap motels. >> i never really noticed what people were actually going through until now, until we're actually going through it, too. >> pelley: jacob braverman's

family is going through it in one room. after they were evicted, their neighbors took them in. you think all of this has changed you? >> yeah, i mean, i haven't realized it, but i think i've gotten very mature in a very short amount of time. >> kroft: christopher hitchens is an influential anglo-american author, journalist, commentator, critic and provocateur. you called mother teresa a "fanatical..." >> a fundamentalist, a fanatic, and a fraud. >> kroft: a "fanatical albanian dwarf". >> "lying, thieving albanian dwarf." >> kroft: he may infuriate you with his opinions about mother teresa, bill clinton or even god, but it's not likely he'll ever bore you. >> simon: you may have seen polar bears shot like this before, but have you ever seen them like this? close up, intimate, just doing what polar bears do. sometimes, even treading on thin

ice. probably not. and that's because they're not being shot at the end of a long lens right now; they're being filmed by spies. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and andy rooney tonight on "60 minutes." [ male announcer ] your hard work has paid off. and you want to pass along as much as possible to future generations. at northern trust, we know what works and what doesn't. as one of the nation's largest wealth managers, we can help you manage the complexities of transferring wealth. seeking to minimize taxes while helping maximize what's passed along. because you just never know how big those future generations might be. ♪ expertise matters. find it at northern trust.

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and the trouble is job creation is so slow, it will be years before we get back the seven and a half million jobs lost in the great recession. american families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers. the combination of lost jobs and millions of foreclosures means a lot of folks are homeless and hungry for the first time in their lives. one of the consequences of the recession that you don't hear much about is the record number of children descending into poverty. the government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. based on that standard and government projections of unemployment, it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in this country will soon hit 25%. those children would be the largest american generation to be raised in hard times since the great depression. in seminole county, near orlando, florida, so many kids

have lost their homes, school buses now stop at dozens of cheap motels where families crowd into rooms, living week to week. 11-year-old destiny corfee joined the line at this motel a year ago. >> destiny corfee: i never really noticed what people were actually going through until now, until we're actually going through it, too. >> pelley: david and teresa corfee never imagined their family homeless. together, they were making about $40 an hour detailing expensive cars. there was a three-bedroom home, vacations, extras for the kids. but both jobs went, and then the house. evicted, they found that the homeless shelters wanted to split their family up-- boys and girls. >> david corfee: that was definitely something that i wasn't going to have was being separated at a time like this. i figured that at a time like this that we needed to be together more than anything. >> pelley: so david, theresa, destiny, jorge and chance moved into their van.

>> david corfee: jorge climbed up here on the backseat, destiny and chance here. >> destiny corfee: i was embarrassed that, like, maybe one of my friends might see me. i don't want anybody to know that i was actually in there. >> pelley: where was the van parked? >> destiny corfee: it was at a walmart. >> jorge corfee: we would actually go in walmart and clean ourself up before we'd go to school. >> destiny corfee: yeah, in the bathrooms. >> jorge corfee: save some money. >> pelley: how would you do that? >> jorge corfee: i would, like, wash my face and, like, take a tissue and wash my arms and stuff. >> destiny corfee: we would bring the toothpaste and the toothbrush and the brushes, like, so we'll go brush our hair in the mirror and, like, people would see us. >> jorge corfee: yeah. >> destiny corfee: and it would be kind of weird. but we worked through it. >> pelley: tell me about the motel that you're living in now. >> destiny corfee: well, it's a lot better than the van. >> jorge corfee: yeah. it's really small, though. >> pelley: two rooms for the five of them. their possessions, family photos, you name it, went into storage. and they lost it all, seized and sold, when they couldn't pay that bill. >> jorge corfee: most of my stuff was in there-- my scooter, my game system, all my games, my clothes. so i lost most of my stuff, so... >> destiny corfee: i had so many of my toys and things-- my barbie dolls, clothes.

and it was just all gone. >> pelley: what's the neighborhood like around the motel? >> destiny corfee: it's scary. >> pelley: what do you mean? >> destiny corfee: like, you hear on the news all the time about, like, shootings, and it's all right there. >> pelley: nationwide, 14 million children were in poverty before the great recession. now, the u.s. census tells us it's 16 million, up two million in two years. that is the fastest fall for the middle class since the government started counting 51 years ago. one of the areas suffering the most is otherwise advertised as "the happiest place on earth"-- the counties around disney world and orlando. just on highway 192, the road to disney world, 67 motels house about 500 homeless kids. the government counts them homeless if they have only temporary shelter. in seminole county schools, a

thousand students have recently lost their homes. how many of you, in the last few weeks, have gone to bed hungry? at casselberry school, students whose families are at the poverty level or slightly above qualify for the free lunch program. we talked with some of those kids, with their parents' permission. who can tell me what it's like to feel hungry? >> it's, like, hard. you can't sleep. you just, like, wait. you just go to sleep for, like, five minutes and you wake up again. and your, like, stomach hurts, and you're thinking, "i can't sleep. i'm going to try and sleep, i'm going to try and sleep." but you can't, because you're... because, like, your stomach's hurting, and it's because it doesn't have any food in it. >> and it's like a black hole. and sometimes when i don't eat, my stomach, you can hear it, like, it... it's, like, growling. you can hear it. >> usually, we eat macaroni, or we don't... or we drink water or

tea. >> my mother will sometimes, like, make food, and then she won't have enough, so, at night, we'll just eat cereal or something. other times, my parents will fight about money, because they don't have enough money to pay the food. >> we have to sometimes take food from a church. it's hard, because my grandmother's also out of work and we usually get some food from her. >> it's kind of embarrassing because, the next day, you go to school asking kids if they want this or if they want that. if they have cereal and they haven't opened it yet, you go ask them if they want their cereal. >> pelley: we found a lot of families are making a choice between food and electricity. how many of you have had the lights turned off at your house? how do you study when you don't have the lights on at home? >> we have emergency

flashlights, and i usually have to use them. >> i'll just light candles and sit around in a circle of candles. >> pelley: candles. yes, ma'am. >> i use candles, because my mommy brings some. >> i go out to the car and turn on the overhead, and read out there and study. >> pelley: ashley rhea raised her hand to add something that we didn't expect. >> ashley rhea: i kind of feel like it's my fault that we don't have enough money. i feel like it's my fault that they have to pay for me and the clothes that they buy for me. >> beth davalos: they're believing it's their fault that they're in this situation. >> pelley: beth davalos runs the seminole county programs for homeless kids. >> davalos: our numbers go up every day, between five and 15 new homeless students a day. >> pelley: every day? >> davalos: every day. >> pelley: and she told us something else is new. >> davalos: when i first started this program eight years ago, homelessness lasted maybe two, three months. but now, with it lasting three,

six months, a year or two years, this is when children are developing who they are, and their foundation is broken. >> pelley: how are these kids doing in school? >> davalos: they're struggling. it's much harder. they're more at risk of not doing well. they're focusing on "how can i help mom and dad." we have so many students that want to quit school and go to work. >> pelley: beth davalos is working to keep jacob braverman on track in school. his family lost this house suddenly in october. when he got off the bus that day, the door was locked. >> jacob braverman: that was the last thing that i expected. >> pelley: it wasn't your house anymore. >> jacob braverman: yeah. >> pelley: his mother, rosa, lost her job. but the eviction was a shock. the bank told rosa she had 30 days, but it was five days later that the cops moved them out. there's a lot of chaos in foreclosures all across the country because of the sheer number of them. there were a million last year, and another million are expected this year.

in florida, the counties with the highest foreclosure rates see some of the biggest increases in child poverty. rosa was suddenly on the street, and like the corfees, she faced splitting up her family. >> rosa braverman: this is what is important is family is wherever you are, together. it doesn't matter if it is in your house, if it is in one room, or in your vehicle. >> jacob braverman: as long as you're with your family, you're going to make it through all of this that's been going on, all of it. >> pelley: do you find yourself trying to cheer your mom up? >> jacob braverman: sometimes, yeah. >> pelley: and when you do that, what do you tell her? >> jacob braverman: "i love you, mom." >> pelley: that always works. >> jacob braverman: yeah. >> pelley: rosa, jacob, joey and the dog are all in one room, right across the street. the neighbors took them in. we've seen a lot of that in our stories on the recession--

neighbors, even strangers, opening homes to the homeless. we talked to the bravermans at the neighbor's house. they've been here three months, and that is starting to worry them. >> jacob braverman: i want to give the neighbors their own privacy, too, you know? i don't want to be invasive. >> pelley: so you miss your privacy from across the street. what else? >> jacob braverman: sometimes, you know, i have to go to the bathroom at night. and here i have to be, like, really, really quiet, because if i wake them up, i don't want to make them upset and get us kicked out. >> pelley: homeless kids tiptoe in a world of insecurity, hoping to be invisible. >> jacob braverman: people said that i talk too much, and now they say i don't talk enough and that i'm really shy, i guess. >> pelley: you think all this has changed you? >> jacob braverman: yeah, and i haven't realized it, but i think i've gotten very mature in a very short amount of time. >> pelley: look for the homeless in seminole county, and you'll find robert williams' family of five in one motel room. he and his wife lost their

tourism jobs several months back. when angel abreau lost his construction job, he and his wife had to split their family among relatives. they see their three young children on weekends. and on sunday evenings, when we saw them, the good-byes are always painful. destiny corfee's family got out of that van and into a motel when her dad found a little day labor to scrape together a deposit on the room. he applied at car washes and at disney world, and worked as a bricklayer's assistant, but it was nothing steady. as the hotel bill came due, david was short. he found himself prepared to do nearly anything to keep his family from being split apart by the homeless shelters. >> david corfee: so, as embarrassing as it was, i sat down with a magic marker-- and i've seen these people on the road with these signs before-- and i wrote a sign out. >> pelley: what did the sign say? >> david corfee: it said, "please help. family of five." every truck that went by, i would holler out to them, and

let them see my sign. "hey, do you need any help? can i get a job? do you need any help?" >> destiny corfee: i didn't think that it was going to have to, like, come down to that. like, he was actually going to go and take the sign and show it to people. and i don't want people to know, like, that i... he's my dad. i don't want to be embarrassed by people. >> pelley: you must have thought that you would never be that guy, the guy with the sign? >> david corfee: never, and in a million years, did i think that that would be me. and... and i told my wife, "this is america, and america is full of wonderful people. and i'm going to go out and see what i can do and see if there's someone out there that can help us." >> pelley: he showed us the sign that eventually caught the eye of a woman who stopped to say she might have a job for him. >> david corfee: and sure enough, that phone rang about a week later. she said, "david, i'd like to tell you you're golden-- that we have a job for you, and you can start friday." >> pelley: and that's where you got the hat. >> david corfee: that's where i got the hat. >> pelley: the university of central florida. >> david corfee: absolutely. and i've been wearing this hat ever since.

>> pelley: he's a parking attendant, $10 an hour, and that's enough to keep the motel room, but not enough to get out. jorge dropped out senior year to look for work, but destiny is still being picked up on the school bus route for homeless kids. >> destiny corfee: and when things get better again, we know that there are still people struggling. so we'll be able to help out a lot more, and we'll understand what they're going through. >> pelley: this opened your eyes to an america that you didn't know existed? >> destiny corfee: mm-hmm. i can't believe it. >> pelley: we all hear about the recovery, that the recession ended in 2009, but some things are getting worse before they get better. and child poverty is one of them. america's motel generation is growing fast. like the kids who came out of the great depression, this generation is being shaped by homelessness and hunger, but also by memories of neighbors

who opened their homes, and of families that refused to be broken. >> david corfee: i love you guys. >> jorge corfee: i love you, too. >> david corfee: love you, destiny. >> destiny corfee: love you, too. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by: >> mitchell: good evening. the obama administration is considering tapping into the strategic oil reserve as an option to help stabilize spiking gas prices fueled by turmoil in libya. and pump prices have jumped 33 cents in just two weeks to $3.51 a gallon. and "rango" rose to the top spot at the weekend box office. i'm russ mitchell, cbs news.

>> kroft: christopher hitchens is an anglo-american author, journalist, commentator, critic, contrarian, and provocateur. he's considered one of the most influential writers of politics,

literature, and popular culture wherever the english language is spoken or read. he is also ranked among its leading essayists and conversationalists, and considered one of the world's leading public intellectuals. but don't let the word "intellectual" scare you off. you may be infuriated with some of his opinions, but it's not likely you'll be bored. he is an engaging, boozy, bare- knuckled writer who is now waging his biggest fight against stage four cancer. and, as he likes to point out, there is no stage five. but he is still writing for an audience that spans generations and national boundaries. ( applause ) that broad appeal was never more apparent than one night early last summer when hitchens was interviewed by his friend, salman rushdie, before a highbrow new york audience, and then, later... >> jon stewart: christopher hitchens! >> kroft: ...appeared on comedy central's "the daily show with jon stewart"-- both to promote his new memoir, "hitch 22." >> jon stewart: how are you, sir?

>> christopher hitchens: it's a bit early to say. >> stewart: stop it. >> kroft: the audience may have assumed that hitchens was making a joke about his well-known penchant for staying out late and drinking. in fact, unbeknownst to anyone, he had checked himself out of a hospital earlier that day after having been told that he most likely was suffering from metastasized esophageal cancer. >> hitchens: i'm a member of a cancer elite. i rather look down on people with lesser cancers. >> kroft: have people survived it? >> hitchens: oh, yeah. it can be survived. but the statistics are 5%, in other words, which are not the odds i would have picked. >> kroft: when we began conversations with him a few months after he'd been diagnosed. he'd already cancelled his book tour and begun an intensive protocol of chemotherapy, which had robbed him of much of his energy and all but a few strands of his hair. now, most of his research and rumination were focused on his own mortality. what is your life like right now? i mean, in terms of what you're able to do and how you feel physically?

>> hitchens: i was very afraid it would stop me writing. and i was really petrified with fear about that, because i thought that would, among other things, diminish my will to live, because it's... writing is... being a writer's what i am rather than what i do. >> kroft: it would be impossible here to adequately summarize his output, since it includes 25 books, and countless articles, reviews and commentaries pounded out over four decades through a haze of cigarette smoke and filtered through kettles of johnny walker black. suffice it to say he writes with confidence, conviction, certainty, and an air of self- satisfaction, using his wits and words as weapons to eviscerate egos and slaughter sacred cows. he's labeled henry kissinger a "war criminal," bill clinton a "rapist" and a "con man," and the british royal family "a blight upon the reputation of england." i mean, you do go over the top, occasionally. >> hitchens: i'm in no position to deny it, but i'm wondering if you had... i'd do better if you

said where you thought that was. >> kroft: well, you called mother teresa a "fanatical..." >> hitchens: a fundamentalist, a fanatic, and a fraud. >> kroft: a "fanatical albanian dwarf". >> hitchens: "lying, thieving albanian dwarf." >> kroft: "lying, thieving albanian dwarf." >> hitchens: that was, i admit, an exercise in seeing how far i could go. >> kroft: but why did you want to do it? >> hitchens: it was about celebrity culture. now, mother teresa started with a reputation of being a saint, and so, therefore, everything she did had to be reported as saintly. thus, the fact that she took money from the duvalier family dictatorship in haiti-- who must've oppressed the poor more than any other dynasty in history-- somehow wasn't a fact. because it couldn't be true, because a saint wouldn't do that. >> kroft: what about princess diana? >> hitchens: well, with princess diana... >> kroft: i'm trying to remember what you said about princess diana. >> hitchens: well, i... >> kroft: you compared her to a landmine. >> hitchens: well, there's a horrible joke about a landmine, yes. >> kroft: yes. >> hitchens: she was in angola

on her landmine campaign, and there was a hushed, reverent bbc commentator and he said, "the thing about minefields is that they're... they're very easy to lay, but they're very difficult and dangerous and even expensive to get rid of." now, the perfect description of prince charles's first wife. >> kroft: you wrote it, and it was printed? >> hitchens: oh, yeah, yeah. >> kroft: christopher hitchens was born 61 years ago into what he calls "the gray middle class austerity of post-war england." his father was a naval officer, and his mother, the first real splash of color in an otherwise drab existence. she told him the only unforgivable sin was to be boring, and he has rarely committed it. she aspired for him to go to oxford and become a proper english gentleman, and one of those wishes came true. at oxford, hitchens says he kept two sets of books-- by day, he was an international socialist

pamphleteer, and his nights were spent sipping whiskey and fine wine with the oxford elite. >> hitchens: any exercise of hedonism on my part was actually a rebellion against conservatism. it might not have been for everybody, but it was for me. >> kroft: you were somewhat famous, or infamous, at oxford, i take it? >> hitchens: "notorious" would do. yes, i was. >> kroft: people knew who you were. >> hitchens: i was... i... i've always been able to give a speech in public. and '68 was a good year if you could... if you could just get up on a truck or an upturned barrel and make a speech through a megaphone, or without, or in the more parliamentary style, which i had been trained for by debating society, speak at the oxford union against members of the government. i mean, cabinet ministers would come on the train. it was only an hour from london. and you could meet them when you were 18 and debate with them on level terms. >> kroft: within a few years of graduation, he was one of the most famous journalists in britain, covering wars abroad and creating mischief at home. margaret thatcher once spanked him on the rump and called him a "naughty boy."

but he soon found england small and confining. >> hitchens: dr. samuel johnson used to say... famously said, "if a man is tired of london he's tired of life." and i was... i was tired of london by the time i was 30, and i decided i... england was too small. i wanted to leave. i never get bored here. >> kroft: "here" is washington, d.c., where hitchens has lived for the last 20 years with his wife, carol blue, and the youngest of his three children. they have not gotten around to actually hanging pictures, but hitchens seems to know the exact location of every book in his vast library, from byron and spinoza to "gray's anatomy". he has read them all cover to cover, and can still quote lengthy passages. >> hitchens: and here's a collection of holy books, if ever i want to look for loopholes. >> kroft: for years, he hosted a famous party for "vanity fair" here, rubbing shoulders with supreme court justices, senators, hollywood royalty, and network news anchors, providing ammunition to rivals who call him a shameless name dropper and social climber.

the apartment is currently being expanded with the proceeds of his recent best seller, "god is not great." you've elevated your career by picking on bigger and bigger targets. it's kind of gone from being hitchens against kissinger, hitchens... hitchens against clinton, hitchens against mother teresa, hitchens against god. >> hitchens: ah, well. in a way, of course, it has to end with the belief in the divine, yes, because that is the origin of all dictatorship. >> kroft: to some, hitchens may be most familiar as the country's best-known atheist. >> hitchens: don't keep the faith. >> kroft: he has taken on organized religion in his book, in dozens of articles, and on the debate platform all over the country. >> hitchens: i don't think it will take me ten minutes to disprove the existence of god. >> kroft: religion, he contends, is the source of all tyranny, and that much of the trouble in the world can be traced to fanaticism, whether it's

practiced by islamic terrorists or settlers on the west bank. >> hitchens: it is the wish to be a slave. it is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought-crime while you are asleep. ...a celestial north korea. ( laughter ) >> kroft: wherever he appears, his readers fill auditoriums and wait in long lines for him to sign their books, even in the bible belt. >> hitchens: if i could change just one thing, it would be to disassociate the idea of faith from virtue. >> kroft: this event was in birmingham, alabama. and one of his fans even smuggled in a bottle of hitchens' favorite beverage, which he refers to as mr. walker's amber restorative. >> hitchens: my cup overflows. >> kroft: hitchens has a legion of close friends that includes writers martin amis, ian mcewan, and the critic james fenton, all of whom attest to his superior intellect, social skills, and a

legendary constitution that allows him to consume staggering amounts of alcohol. author christopher buckley recalled a restaurant lunch that began at 1:00 p.m. and ended near midnight. >> christopher buckley: at the end of this ten-and-a-half hour epic lunch, i would have happily checked into the nearest hospital to have oxygen, blood, and extensive liver work. i think he went home and wrote an essay on george orwell. >> salman rushdie: christopher never does anything by halves, you know, so his attack is always a 250% attack. >> kroft: salman rushdie occasionally hid out in hitchens' apartment after the ayatollah khomeini authorized his murder for blasphemy. and graydon carter, the editor of "vanity fair," is a longtime hitchens employer, having assigned him to write about everything from what it's like to get a complete spa makeover to what it's like to be kidnapped and water-boarded. hitchens quickly concluded that the latter was definitely

torture, although the bikini wax was more painful. what was it like to edit him? >> graydon carter: he was so erudite that it was putting in, sort of, declarative sentences for the rest of us, so we'd all be on... roughly on the same page. but the prose is absolutely perfect. there... you don't need to line edit christopher, because we're... you just need to help him explain it to... >> buckley: ...people who were less smart than he. >> carter: yes. yeah, which... which includes... >> rushdie: ...all of us, yes. >> buckley: yes. just about everyone. >> rushdie: he would assume that everybody knew what he knew and... >> carter: yes. yes. >> rushdie: and nobody did. >> kroft: not everyone is so generous. as you might expect, hitchens has made a lot of enemies over the years, including many former comrades on the left who have heaped scorn upon him for supporting the invasion of iraq. hitchens responded by having himself sworn in as an american citizen by the chief of homeland security. when we spoke to him last month, he seemed to be basking in the venom of his detractors. alexander cockburn, a former friend of yours, called you "self-serving, fat-ass, chain- smoking, drunken, opportunistic

cynical contrarian." >> hitchens: well, i don't see what's wrong with that, though he should see my ass now. >> kroft: hitchens says he nearly died in january, when the chemotherapy began to destroy his innards. he called it a bad dress rehearsal. he is now in an experimental program with a cutting edge drug that has shown some promise attacking the specific type of cancer cells that are eating away at his body. he is hoping that it will produce a long remission, but as usual, he is keeping two sets of books. >> hitchens: i mean, i make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if i was going to carry on living. >> kroft: how far do you think ahead? >> hitchens: i hate it when people ask what the expiry date of my credit card is. i noticed it the other day. someone said, "what's the expiration date?" i said, "who wants to know?" >> kroft: hitchens has been deeply touched by the letters and emails that he's received,

many offering prayers for his recovery. what's needed, he says, is a medical outcome that would have to be described, given the poverty of the english language, as a miracle. but he is placing his faith in science and medicine, not in the existence of a god. is there anything that could change your mind in your weakened state? >> hitchens: well, i ought to never say there's nothing would change my mind. so, shall i just say that no evidence has... or argument has yet been presented that would change my mind. but i like surprises. >> welcome to the sex sports updated. i'm greg gumbel. top-ranked ohio state rolls past wisconsin. boston college helped its tournament chances and georgia tech overcame a ten-point second-half deficit. kentucky and penn state registered big road wins while indiana state registered their

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>> simon: if you've ever enjoyed the sight of polar bears, this story is for you. because you're about to see them as you never have before. for this, you can thank the ice- breaking work of john downer, a british filmmaker, who has spent the last two years getting to know them. it wasn't easy. polar bears frequent the most forbidding part of the planet. it's tough to get there. and once you do, it's really cold. polar bears are also difficult to spot-- white on white is not easy on the eye. in the past, they'd been filmed from a distance, which is advisable. polar bears are dangerous. but john downer wanted to get up close and survive. so, he needed new tricks. he came up with forms of surveillance which could make the c.i.a. proud. downer's film, "spy on the ice," will air on animal planet in the u.s. this coming week.

he will take you inside their world. we'll show you how he does it. you may have seen polar bears shot like this before, but have you ever seen them like this-- close up, intimate? just doing what polar bears do? sometimes, even treading on thin ice. probably not. and that's because they're not being shot at the end of a long lens right now. they're being filmed by spies. for the last two years, they have been under constant surveillance, scrutinized by snowballs, by mounds of snow, by tiny icebergs drifting in the seas. they're cameras, of course, but the nearest cameraman can be miles away. we're up in the arctic circle,

chillingly close to the north pole. we've traveled to remote places before, but never on an icebreaker. we were invited on board by john downer, the englishman who has revolutionized the way wildlife films are made-- with espionage, cunning espionage. what's the idea of a spy cam? >> john downer: well, the thing about a spy cam is it... it actually gets you close to the animals. you're in the scene, you're in the picture. you're picking up a magic that you cannot capture with a normal camera. it is like a secret world. >> simon: if the lion is the king of the jungle, then the polar bear is the king of the ice. he's at the top of the food chain here on the top of the world, and he's revered by the few people who live in the arctic circle. they call him "god's dog" or the "ever-wandering one," because he can roam hundreds of miles searching for seals. that is, on ice. but in summertime, there is less ice, so some bears get stuck on

dry land, where they have to scavenge to stay alive. downer and his crew plant their spy cams wherever they think a hungry chap might pass by. they do it quickly because it's dangerous up here. it's illegal to leave your boat without an armed escort. we had two. >> downer: polar bears see something on two legs and think, "well, that might be food." everything it sees that moves in this environment could be food. and of course, food is everything in this world. >> simon: the cameras are triggered by motion, and there isn't much motion up here that isn't a polar bear. the remains of this whale carcass looked appetizing. bears were bound to come around, even though there wasn't much meat left on the bone. >> downer: that's tucked back in there. that's perfect. i think this is a good shot. >> simon: it's all in the positioning what you need more than anything else is a wild imagination. >> downer: ( laughs ) yeah.

wild, that's right. and... and, you know, some commitment to... to have a mad dream and then carry it through. >> simon: but not mad enough to hang around very long. bears are rather rapid. they can do a hundred meters in nine seconds. that means they can outrun the world's fastest sprinter. >> downer: you see the polar bear is not far. >> simon: now, at this time of year, would this polar bear presumably be hungry? >> downer: very hungry. ( laughter ) we'll keep an eye on him. >> simon: and he's keeping an eye on us. >> downer: i mean, that's fine, at that distance >> simon: that is as long as there isn't another bear behind us. >> downer: well, there are other bears behind us, and we can't see them. >> phil dalton: okay, we've got to go. >> simon: he's looking right at us now. >> downer: i think now is the time to go. the bear is getting closer. i think we need to get back on board now. >> simon: back in the safety of

the mother ship, downer's technical wizard, geoff bell, is innovating by the minute. bell had been a model airplane designer for years when downer realized how useful his talents and his toys could be in the espionage game. you've used the word "toys," and you started doing this when you were how old, seven? >> geoff bell: seven, yeah. >> simon: yeah. ( laughter ) >> bell: yeah. and the only difference, as you know, between men and boys is the price of the toys. so, you... you know, that's what we do-- we're hobbyists and gone into it professionally. >> simon: bell has just perfected what he calls an "iceberg cam," which does double duty-- above the water and down below. the camera catches the action when a bear goes under, feet last, to check out that whale carcass. >> downer: fantastic. there she comes and feeds. >> simon: this is one cool bear,

isn't it? >> downer: it's done exactly what we wanted absolutely on time. >> simon: exactly what the bear wanted, too-- lunch. what her cub seemed to want was to be on camera. don't tell me that she's not mugging for the camera. look at that-- full-faced shot, relaxed. i wonder how they would react if they could see themselves on television. >> downer: i am sure that would be very pleased to be on "60 minutes." very proud. ( laughter ) fantastic scene. >> simon: but mama bear doesn't seem to think so. she takes out her disappointment on the hapless camera. this film, "spy on the ice," is the latest in downer's 30-year career, which began with the bbc's natural history unit. first project-- he wanted to capture what it's like to be a bird.

that meant flying with one. so he trained a duck from the time its egg hatched to think of him as its father. you were the daddy of a duck. >> downer: i was the... i was the daddy. >> simon: how did it feel? >> downer: i was the daddy. i had to take it to the office. it came with me as it was growing up. it would be in the car when i was driving along. it would even go to the dinner parties. i always had to go everywhere with this duck. >> simon: eventually, he took the duck and his camera 200 feet up in a parasail. he had never flown before. >> and when we were up at altitude, i released this duck. and within a few seconds, it formatted next to me, and was flying alongside me, literally, a foot away from my head. >> simon: john, you flew with a duck. >> downer: yep. one of my first filming experiences was flying with a duck. and i think, very early on in my career, i started to realize, you know, what it's like to be that animal.

>> simon: what's it like to be a lion? downer explored that in his film "spy in the den." the stars were not only lions, but sir david attenborough, the world's most respected naturalist. >> sir david attenborough: this, as you may have guessed, is no ordinary film about lions. some of its sequences were gained in the most extraordinary way. this remote camera, disguised as a boulder, has been able to go into the very heart of the pride. >> simon: and attenborough says it's not difficult to understand why this has never been done before. >> attenborough: most people say it's impossible. and john would say, "uh, i wonder," you know? i mean, if someone said to you, "i want a bird's-eye view of a bird in flight," what would you do? well, the ans... short answer is you go and see john downer. ( laughter ) >> simon: how about tigers, the most elusive of predators? downer got to four cubs when

they were ten days old. it was the first time anyone had filmed them that young. there they were with their protective mother, who just wouldn't let go. and downer wouldn't let go, either. he was with them to celebrate their first birthday, and stayed with them for the next three years. how did he do it? by enlisting the ultimate all terrain camera vehicles-- elephants. he mounted trunk cams and tusk cams, and the tigers were not at all self-conscious, because elephants have always been part of their world. and in downer's world, the gravest sin is to do something that does not astonish his viewers. that requires a lot of patience and a lot of tape. he shoots 17 hours of material for every minute that makes the cut. >> downer: every time i make a

film on a new subject, i want to interpret that animal in a way that hasn't been before, and i... that's really what drives me. i think if you're approaching a subject afresh and really trying to get new insights, you can never bore the audience. >> simon: africa's famous wildebeest migration has been filmed hundreds of times, but not with a croc cam, or a skull cam, or a dung cam. that's right-- an hd camera smothered in dung. somebody had to do it. how about the toy man, geoff bell? geoff had to spread the dung on the camera. >> downer: yes. >> simon: did he get a bonus for that? >> downer: it's all part of the job. >> simon: downer says his toughest job has been right up here, because of the hostile environment, and the fact that his subjects are so hard to find.

but on the bridge of the icebreaker, he and producer phil dalton showed us what might just be the most extraordinary polar bear sequence ever filmed. the snow cams were placed outside a den, where a bear stays for six months to give birth to and rear her cub. then, dalton went away, far away. >> dalton: about 60 miles away. >> simon: 60 miles? you were 60 miles away from that camera? >> dalton: while this was being filmed, yeah. i mean, we had no idea it was going on, really. >> simon: when he retrieved the camera ten days later, this is what dalton saw-- the snow mysteriously being wiped off the lens. how? with a paw. >> downer: there's the cub. the first glimpse of the cub. >> simon: this is the cub's first look at the world? >> downer: it is. >> simon: his brave new white world. >> downer: we couldn't have dreamt that we would get something like this. this here, we've got this wonderful situation here-- the mother righting the camera.

the cam... the... the bears seem to be doing the camera work. and the... what happens-- this is actually quite magical, because you feel you really are alone with these bears in the moment. and a little cub, you know, the first glimpses and there... >> dalton: she pushes the camera down the hill here. >> simon:( laughs ) wow. >> downer: so, miraculously, the camera is still in the middle of frame. yeah. >> simon: and, miraculously, they not only follow the camera, but the mother reframes the shot. >> downer: for me, this has a certain magic and innocence about it in the way the cub and the mum are just there alone with the cameras in their world. and those little glimpses... and they're... they're wandering

off. and this is the start of their journey, you know, which is going to be thousands of miles. >> simon: probably never to be seen again by the likes of us. they'll just keep wandering, roaming on the ice as long as it's there. depression is a serious medical condition. i feel like i have to wind myself up to deal with the sadness, the loss of interest, the lack of energy. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor about pristiq -- a prescription medicine proven to treat depression. pristiq is thought to work by affecting the levels of two chemicals in the brain -- serotonin and norepinephrine. tell your doctor right away if your depression worsens or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior, or thoughts of suicide. anti-depressants can increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children, teens, and young adults. pristiq is not approved for children under 18. do not take pristiq with maois. taking pristiq with nset pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk.

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>> safer: now andy rooney. >> rooney: if you were to make a list of all the good things in the world, books would be right up near the top.

someone did a great thing when they invented books. one way or another, books have been around for a long time now, too. i don't really know who invented the printed word, but you'd have to put it ahead of things like the airplane or jelly doughnuts. i have a friend, peter osnos, who publishes books, and peter told me that what they call "e- books"-- electronic books-- are now selling better than paperback books. i doubt it, but that's what peter said and he's in the business. he makes it sound as if every book will be published electronically soon, and be read using some sort of an electronic device. i'm not interested in having my books on an electronic device. i want them in books. i want my words in books. i like having these books behind me, so i asked another friend to show me his e-reader. he told me that you can carry over 3,500 books in just this one little package.

my books have always been important to me-- not just the books i've written, but any book i own. i can't imagine not being able to pick up a book and thumb through it. one of the first books i wrote, a long time ago, was called "the fortunes of war." it was pretty expensive then-- $7.50. now, you can get it free as an e-book. not much in that for me. my friend said that e-readers will eventually make books extinct. i hope that doesn't include authors. >> safer: i'm morley safer. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." i can't get rid of these weeds, or these nasal allergies. i know what works differently than many other allergy medications. omnaris. omnaris. to the nose! did you know nasal symptoms like congestion can be caused by allergic inflammation? omnaris relieves your symptoms by fighting inflammation. side effects may include headache, nosebleed and sore throat. [ inhales deeply ]

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