Polar Bears and Churchill

How could one not love these guys? I must admit, however, that writing about this experience has been a challenge and that I started and stopped many times. Perhaps it was the fact that we had just returned from thirty plus days in Africa with a short stay in Amsterdam or that we embarked on this trip a scant two weeks after we returned or maybe it was some nagging health issues or just travel burnout, but while always in the back of my mind, the words just wouldn't come.

We left Scottsdale and spent one night in Calgary, before heading to Winnipeg for another night before boarding our Calm Air, great name isn't it, propeller plane for the two hour trip to Churchill, which is two thousand miles north and slightly east of Scottsdale. It's only five hundred miles from the Arctic Circle, but an astonishing two thousand miles from the North Pole. The world is certainly one big place. As you can imagine it is frighteningly cold most of the year in Churchill with Hudson's Bay being ice free for less than three months. The rest of the time everything is frozen. The current temperature there is minus 31 F. I've become somewhat obsessed with the place and it hasn't been above minus 10 F for weeks. For fun add it to your phones' weather app. No matter where you live, you will feel better about the weather seeing what the folks in Churchill are going through.

As you might imagine, it's not a bustling place. These pictures were taken at high noon on Saturday.

Pictures aside Churchill is a fascinating, if cold and isolated place, that has been inhabited since 1700 B.C.  For hundred's of years the ancestor peoples to the Inuit lived by hunting the seals, beluga whales and polar bears that inhabited the area. Other ancient people inhabited the areas inland in Northern Manitoba and over time they developed healthy trading relationships with the Inuits. What did they trade? Caribou, wood, some grains and furs for the marine animals the Inuit hunted. Why does this matter?

Well, when the first Europeans arrived in the late 1600's to establish trading posts, the Inuit served as the intermediaries to the other native peoples helping the Hudson's Bay Company establish major trading posts on the Bay. The Inuit traded beaver, fox and marten pelts for such things as cloth, blankets and tools as well as guns, tobacco and brandy. Ah Colonialism. By 1717, Churchill was important enough for a fort to be begun to be built there although it took forty years to finish.

Throughout it's history Churchill has been an important trading post and today is vital to Manitoba's grain trade. At one time it had a population of 4,000 and was an important military base and part of NORAD. It was also where Canada developed their first missiles, some of which are still used by NASA. Today only 800 people live there. The grain elevator is the major employer, but that's only for ninety days each year. There is a Regional Hospital and school and a few small shops and motels for the tourist seasons. Not that the tourist seasons are long. Known as "The Polar Bear Capital of the World" that season last six weeks. A few folks brave February for the Northern Lights and some come in July/August for the beluga whales, but that's it. Oh, you have to fly here. There are no roads connecting it to anywhere and the train takes four days from Winnipeg when it runs.

Ok, that's enough about Churchill, we did go there to see the Polar Bears and our first encounter with one was at the Polar Bear Jail. As cute as they may look they are serious threats to humans as they  roam free throughout the town and surrounding area. A person was mauled one week before we arrived in the doorway of a restaurant on the main street and our guide later emailed us that three more mailings happened during her six weeks there. When bears are found in town, if they can't be scared away or continue coming back, they are tranquilized and brought to the holding facility and then transported to a distant spot in the tundra. It was at the Polar Bear Jail we saw our first bear.

The Polar Bear Jail is a large quonset hut building that can hold up to sixteen bears at a time. As luck would have it one was being transported that day to a far off place in the tundra and we were lucky enough to witness the process.

The bear emerges, heavily tranquilized from the facility on a gurney. The helicopter is waiting and the handlers move it into position and place it on the net.

Once the bear is on the net, the process is completed by the helicopter. When the bear reaches it's new   destination another crew reverses the process and makes certain the bear is unharmed. ( I have a great video of this, but after hours of trying to get Blogger to add it, I had to go to stills. ) It was rare to see this and was a great start to our Polar Bear Experience.

They take the conservation of Polar Bears very seriously, but they are a constant threat to the populace. One way they capture nuisance bears is with these traps.

                        

There are warning signs everywhere and when all else fails men like this patrol polar bear areas and are armed with a variety of shells to scare the bears or in the end kill them. It should be noted that there hasn't been a bear killing in Churchill since 2008.

Caution is the watch word at all times in Churchill. We were not allowed out at night without an escort. A siren sounds at 10:00 PM to make certain all children are off of the streets. As playful as they may look they are total killing machines. I don't think you'd want to run into one. They are a little bit bigger than us.

Now it's time to go out in the tundra and see the bears in their natural habitat, but you'll have to go to the next post.