The Polar Bears

As you all know, a few weeks ago we lived Joep’s Canadian dream by heading to Quebec to see the whales in the wild. This weekend it was my turn and, I may be wrong here, but I think that my Canadian dream kicks Joep’s Canadian dream’s butt!!

Friday night saw us boarding a flight to Winnipeg … yes, yes, this doesn’t sound very exciting. Have some patience!!

We arrived in Winnipeg laaaaate on Friday night in time for a good night of sleep prior to our 5am start on Saturday morning. Yes, a 5am start. Very early. But were we cranky? NO! We were far too excited to be worried about lack of sleep!

At 6am we met up with our tour operator Don of Heartland Travel at the dinky little charter air terminal in Winnipeg. Three and a half hours later we were landing in Churchill. Why? To see the polar bears in the wild!! Churchill is a little town on the southwestern shores of the Hudson Bay. For those of you who don’t know the Hudson Bay, Google it OR think of Toronto and head way northwest. Way. Canada is very big remember.

The population consists of 900 permanent inhabitants and many many polar bears that visit between the months of August to early November. OK so here is a quick explanation of why the bears are there and then I will tell you all about the wonderful adventure we went on!! So the Hudson Bay is frozen solid for the winter however is melts completely over the summer, refreezing in November. As a result, all the polar bears come ashore for a little summer vacation!! Although it’s not my idea of a great summer vacation because the poor bears don’t have much to eat for 3 months and only survive on their fat reserves built up over the winter (after 2 months in Canada Joep and I could probably survive a summer on our fat reserves too!). So, after hanging out on dry land for the summer, the bears all head towards the coastline in late October early November in anticipation of the refreezing of the Bay. Once the ice freezes over they head out and start feeding again.

All of these things please me greatly because it allowed us to head up north to see actual polar bears in the wild!! How exciting!

We have had this tour booked in since our arrival in Canada and have literally been counting the days till we arrived there. I was NOT disappointed. Joep’s expectations weren’t as high as mine so imagine how much HIS expectations were exceeded!

Now –As mentioned above we flew to Churchill early Saturday morning and arrived at about 9:30am. Once disembarked, we hopped onto a bus to head to our Tundra Buggy. This is a special vehicle with special wheels on it to allow it to travel across the tundra (**shores of the bay**) without causing any environmental damage. As you can imagine it is all conserved land here. And rightly so! On the way out of the airport we drove past the polar bear jail.

Yes. Jail. It was set up as a means of protecting town locals from curious/hungry bears who wander into the town in the summer months. This is a bit unfair though because the town falls right onto the migration path of the bears so they kind of have no choice. Awwww, poor bears. But provided they don’t hang around for too long they are ok.

If they DO hang around too long however, they are captured and placed into polar bear jail for 7-10 days where they are given only water to keep them going as a means of deterring them from returning to the town. Once the poor bears have served their sentence they are air lifted by helicopter approximately 40 miles from the town to resume their wait for the ice to freeze.

When we were in Churchill there were 11 bears incarcerated. We weren’t allowed to visit them. Shame! 

But we weren’t disappointed for too long because within minutes of passing the jail we spotted our first bear! Just strolling down the beach in the distance. Un. Be. Lievable. I was so excited and this was just the beginning! We hadn’t even reached the tundra buggy yet!

We arrived at the tundra buggy shortly afterwards and took up our positions to head out into the wild. The buggy was heated indoors and there is a viewing platform on the back where you can go outside and soak up the atmosphere. I must say, even without the bears, the scenery is phenomenal out there. It is so untouched and I hope it stays that way because it would be a shame to see it change.

It is also pretty cold up there but apparently while we were there is was unseasonably warm. Huh?? Luckily Joep and I bought our winter coats last week and they are good to -40 degrees in a t-shirt. True story. We tested them out on Saturday and I must say I was toasty warm for the entire day! Perfect!!

So our first bear sighting on the tundra (and I won’t bore you with all of them don’t worry!) was a mother and her 2 cubs. It was incredible. They are such beautiful animals! They were walking towards us when mum smelled our bus and made an about face with her cubs in tow. They then marched off into the distance much to our disappointment AND the disappointment of one of the cubs who was very curious about us and kept trying to make a break from his mum to come over and say hi. Mum wasn’t silly though!! However, a few minutes after heading away from us mum stopped again, sniffed the air and made an even faster about face to head back towards us … why? There was a huge male in the distance and she was not risking her little cubs around him! Apparently the males do not often attack young cubs but they will give them a scare if they come too close. Awwww, big bullies! Another interesting fact – The difference in size between the male & female polar bear is the largest size difference between sexes for any animal. The male can often weight double the female … having said this; Joepinator and I are pretty similar to polar bears. Except Joep doesn’t weigh 600kg. Yes, a male bear weighs 600kgs. Incredible. I seem to use that word a lot in relation to this trip.

So, this sighting was very exciting and believe me when I say it was only the beginning. As the day wore on we saw close to 30 bears!! Even our tour guide Don was amazed. According to him it is normal to see 5 or 6 bears in a day so we were very lucky!!

Even more so when you consider that a couple of big male bears were so curious that they actually came right up to our bus, stood on their hind legs and had a good look inside. Incredible! My heart was in my mouth! I have never in my life seen anything more impressive than these bears. They are so huge and they literally do not make a sound when they walk along.  At one point there was a small bear hanging around the tundra buggy very curious about what was going on. He was so curious that he didn’t hear or smell a very big male coming up behind him … when the big bear got within swiping distance the poor little bear got the fright of his life and ran a mile (Delany girls – it was just like dad that time he was changing a light bulb and mother ship crept up behind him and shouted BANG! I can’t write that without laughing …).

There are so many highlights of the day but I won’t bore you with all of them because I am sure this is not as interesting to read as it was to live. Instead I will tell you Joep’s highlight of the day. There was 1 child on our tour. He was really sweet and very well mannered. I chatted to him a bit. Late in the day we spotted a bear looking much worse for wear. He was covered in blood. It was really sad …. Until we found out that he had been trying to fight with a mama bear and her cubs. She gave him what for and he was left licking his very nasty looking wounds. Awww. That’ll learn ya!

So anywhooooo, this young child on the bus was very upset about the hurt bear. I took it upon myself to make him feel better by telling him that it’s just what boys do when they grow up and that the bear would be fine. I then went on to announce that he would do exactly the same thing when he was a grown up. And I finished with the grand finale, which Joep repeats to me excessively at the moment ‘I’m glad I’m not a boy!’

She wasn’t a boy. She was a very sweet little girl. The awkward silence that followed my monologue about the behavior of boys should’ve given this away but it didn’t. I kept going with the ‘boy’ comments until her father politely slipped the fact that he is actually is a she into the conversation. At this point I stopped speaking to them out of sheer mortification. Joep, on the other hand, had a field day with my humiliation.

Being stuck on a bus with someone you have inadvertently offended is awkward so it is lucky that I didn’t know of my error until the end of the day.

Feeling sufficiently excited, exhausted and a little bit embarrassed we headed back to Churchill for a crazy Saturday night out. Of course, I am using irony here. But Churchill is a lovely town! We had a great dinner, we wandered around the town in the sub zero temperatures as the snowstorm got progressively worse and we chatted to some of the locals who were very excited about the Olympic torch, which was run through Churchill on Sunday!

Late Saturday night we all met at our designated spot and headed for our chartered flight back to Winnipeg. Exhausted. And more than satisfied after a day of unforgettable memories with the bears in Churchill!

I recommend it to EVERYONE! You will not be disappointed!