Friends & Fall Colors Tour 2018
Part E (Winnipeg to Churchill)
Up until four years ago, we'd never heard of Churchill, Manitoba. But our friends, Al & Melinda, had just returned from an adventure, and they strongly suggested we add it to our bucket list. After a quick Google search, we did! So as we planned our Friends & Fall Colors Tour of 2018, we figured we'd cap it off with a trip north (almost to the Arctic Circle) to the Polar Bear Capital of the World. It's considered the #1 place in the world to view polar bears.
What you see below here are photos from what was truly a once-in-a-lifetime adventure; 16 travelers, only one of whom had ever been up here, joined a Natural Habitat Adventures (NatHab) tour out of Winnipeg, Manitoba (drop our name if you book!). All of my photos were taken with my iPhone 8+. Later, I'll post photos from fellow travelers with long lenses.
Polar bears in this region gather on the western edge of Hudson Bay waiting for thick ice to form in the Bay. Fresh water from the Churchill River (which originates in the Rockies) that flows into the Bay freezes before the sea water, so the bears learned that THIS is the best place to start their winter journey. Once the Bay freezes, they quickly depart the land and head onto the ice floes to hunt for seals all winter long. That usually happens in late November or early December, but climate change clearly has and will contiue to affect those dates.
The migration from land to sea includes all males and 2/3 of the females. The remaining females are pregnant and holed up in maternity dens inland from the Bay, semi-hibernating and giving birth (the mother-to-baby size is the greatest in the animal kingdom: mom, 800 pounds; cubs, two pounds - so they doubt there's much childbirth pain. Moms watch their cubs for three years, then the cubs are off on their own and the older females are able to get pregnant again. (Another reason male bears are apt to eat their young; the females will be ready to mate again. Which means mother bears are extremely protective of their young. We clearly saw this in the wild.)
Polar bears, as we all know, are amazing creatures. The temperature has to get to -24 degrees (F) before they need to move around to stay warm, so they are perfectly suited for this cllmate.
The trip started slowly, but it built up steam as we arrived in the little town of Churchill. We flew north from Chicago into Winnipeg, and, of course, we had to take the obligatory pics with the stuffed polar bear because, who knows, we might not even SEE a bear in the wild! There are no guarantees. Besides, the pending weather was frightful (for us low-land West Coasters), so we had no clue how that might affect our trip.
San Diego or Bust!
While the temperatures never got above freezing, we were warm enough in our layers and parkas and snow shoes. On colder days we added snow pants and face covers. I was never uncomfortable; I think Tracy was OK, too, although her feet never warmed to her boots.
The sign to the left is very real; it is not a local joke. You generally are safe in a crowd, and polar bears are not wanton, vicious killers out for blood (see bear, brown, especially grizzly). But like any bear, don't get between mama and her cub(s)!
On the second day, we got out on our polar rovers (we did two long days of rover exploring; they fed and hydrated you well; it even had a flush toilet!). The bears below are our first real close-ups and they were heading toward each other - but no confrontation ensued.
We sighted our first bear between the airport and town, but it was a distance away. Later that night when we went out on our first polar rover to have dinner out on the quiet tundra, we spotted another in the glow of the cabin lights from another rover. It wasn't much, but it gave us a taste.
On Day 1, we visited several local haunts. I will say that a photo on the web had me believing that the town was insulated from polar bears. Not so! While there is an effort to keep them at bay, it's not uncommon to have several run out of town a day. They do NOT kill them. Our hotel was in a do-not-walk zone, where we could not go out at night unless it was on the tour bus or taxi. If persistent, bears end up in bear jail for 20 days before being hoisted on a helicopter sling 25 miles north of town (more on that later). If they return to town enough they might get shipped further away. Only stray cubs may end up in zoos. There was a vote recently in town whether they wanted to bear-proof the town, and a strong majority said no!
Tracy warms up her down jacket in Chicago; the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg (8th largest city in Canada), one the Canadian railway hotels. Nice place, conveniently located. We picked up our NatHab parkas and snow boots in the hotel.
Below, the thermometer starts to fall (wind chill going to be -10 on Wednesday for our dog sled run); we flew our large prop plane into Churchill, a two hour flight north of Winnipeg, passing over agricultural fields (cattle, assorted grains and oilseed the top ag products).
The red Adirondack chairs (Muskoka chairs in Canada) are placed in sites in Canadian parks. This was our first sighting; we left our sun tan lotion back home. Cold and windy at the mouth of the Churchill River as it flows into Hudson Bay. Below, early signs of the Bay icing over; ominous clouds over head.
Jeremy above (lives now in SF) was our NatHab guide, and he was terrific. He clearly loved the area and the bears and represented the tour company well. He was very proud of the conservation work NHA & World Wildlife Federation does in this area - and in others.
His guide-in-training, Ben (British Columbia), is to the left; he was very personable and will make a terrific guide of his own some day soon.
Far left is our amazing rover driver who had eagle eyes! From spotting bears to eyeing a white Arctic fox to a white snowshoe hare; we owed a lot of the trip's success to his abilites and personality. A favorite of Jeremy's, and for good reason.
Things got intersting on our first day out when a mom and her cub became quite curious about our rover. Or was it the wafting aroma of Ben & Mike's vegetable soup? The olafactory glands of polar bears are exceptional! They see much better with their noses than their eyes.
We saw 44 bears (eight of which were cubs) in the two and a half days we were in prime polar bear territory, but it was the quality of the viewing that made the trip worthwhile. The company makes every effort NOT to affect bear behavior, so there is no feeding or chumming of the bears. Visitors have been escorted out of Churchill if they disobey the rules; this is not a zoo, people! Our polar rover - a tire is almost as tall as Tracy.
In addition to various talks that Jeremy set up to learn more about the area and how eco-tourism started in Churchill, we drove out to a dog sledder's domain (in the boreal forest; Churchill is on the tundra and only small, stunted trees can grow there) to test our meddle at dog-sledding. It was far more fun and exhilarating than I expected. I asked how much faster the dog teams go in races, and I was told, "The same speed you're going today." Tracy decided she wanted to stand, so I got to sit in front with a blanket on my lap (middle below) and shoot pictures. Nicky is our main musher, bottom right. (Read the fine print of the sign on the left.)
Check out the tundra landscape with Hudson Bay in the background; mom and two cubs on the march.
L to R below: Bear claws (black, polar and top two grizzly). One of the dog handlers with a two-month old Husky. Dave Daley, dog musher extraordinaire. Next row: Our five-dog team sled running in our Iditamile. Two of our fellow mushers; Claire & Barbara.
Above right, Tracy posing with our new Swiss friends, Dominique & Viviane, with their polar bear headband purchases. Viviane above feeding a Canadian jay. Tracy on the musher lodge steps and at a local restaurant doing her best polar bear roar imitation.
Our last event on the way to the Churchill airport took precise timing with Canadian wildlife officials. They moved two bears out of bear jail and slung them under a helicopter to travel north, a safe distance from Churchill. As I've said, they'll be two of the first ones on the ice when the Bay freezes over in a few weeks.
Clockwise from top left: Karen (London); Theresa (Ashville, NC); Paul & Carol (London); Dominique & Viviane (Switzerland) with videographer Pascale (Australia); Dr. Nicky (Green Bay).
Clockwise from top left: Robin & Chris (Centenniel, CO); Pascale and friends; Tracy and musher Nicky; Jean & Evan (Newport Beach). Chris & Evan & Pascale were three with long lenses. I hope to share their photos soon.
Clockwise from left: Evan & Jean; an award-winning 2001 photo on a poster (well-fed bears can be friendly with other wildife); then me resting on a stone chair and posing with a sleeping polar bear in the background. No hugs for me, thank you!
I'm hoping that Part F will include some of the more outstanding photographs from Jeremy and others who, I'm sure, will spend hours pouring over their raw prints to bring us nothing but the best.
