Polar Bears

The bucket list item has finally arrived and I feel like shit!  Churchill is a small town and exists now solely for tourism, with the beluga whales coming into the Hudson River to birth and shed their skin.  Birders come here for the amazing migrations and then there are the Polar Bears.  We are early in the season, so nothing is guaranteed.  But we have been very lucky so far, has our luck run out??  To keep you in suspense a little longer, let me tell you a bit about the wonderfully majestic, fluffy, cuddly creatures.

1. Polar Bear Capital: Churchill, Manitoba, is known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World" because hundreds of polar bears gather there every year. They wait near the shores of Hudson Bay for the sea ice to form so they can hunt seals, their primary food source.

2. Migration and Sea Ice: Polar bears in Churchill are migratory, moving towards the Hudson Bay as it begins to freeze in late fall. They rely on the sea ice to hunt seals, using the ice as a platform to catch their prey. Without the ice, they have difficulty finding food.

3. Hunting Season: Once the sea ice forms, typically in November, polar bears begin their hunting season. They spend the winter months on the ice hunting seals by waiting near breathing holes where the seals surface.

4. Size and Strength: Polar bears are the largest land carnivores on Earth. Adult males can weigh between 410-680 kg (900 to 1,500 pounds) and stand up to 10 feet tall on their hind legs. Females are smaller, usually weighing between 150-295 kg (330 to 650 pounds).

5. Surviving in Harsh Conditions: Polar bears are perfectly adapted to Arctic life. Their thick fur, black skin (which absorbs heat from the sun), and a layer of fat keep them warm. Their paws are large and fur-covered to help them walk on ice and swim in frigid waters.

6. Swimming Abilities: Polar bears are excellent swimmers, capable of swimming long distances between ice floes. They can swim over 100 kilometres without resting. Their large paws act like paddles in the water.

7. Diet: Seals, particularly ringed and bearded seals, make up most of a polar bear's diet. They are high in fat, which is essential for polar bears to build the necessary energy reserves for the lean summer months when food is scarce.

8. Impact of Climate Change: Climate change is affecting polar bears by causing sea ice to form later and melt earlier each year. This shortens their hunting season and reduces the time they have to build fat reserves. Some polar bears have been observed spending more time on land and closer to human settlements as they struggle to find food.

9. Human and Bear Interaction: Churchill has developed a unique system to manage polar bears wandering into town. When a bear comes too close, it is safely captured and placed in a "polar bear jail" until it can be relocated back to the wild. We were fortunate enough to witness this, there is a short video to show what happened.  But back to the facts...

10. Delayed Implantation (Pregnancy): Polar bears have a fascinating reproductive strategy known as delayed implantation. After mating in the spring, a female’s fertilized egg doesn’t immediately implant in the uterus. Instead, the embryo remains in a state of dormancy until the female has built up enough fat reserves to support both her own survival and that of her cubs during hibernation. The pregnancy will only progress if the female has enough fat from hunting seals over the summer and early fall. Please bear this in mind when ,due to climate change, the hunting seasons are getting shorter and shorter, equalling less fat reserves!

11. Den Building: Female polar bears build dens to give birth and protect their cubs from the harsh Arctic winter. These dens are typically dug into snowdrifts or the side of frozen hills. In Churchill, however, the bears have also been known to use soil dens in years when snow is less abundant. Pregnant females enter their dens in late autumn, where they give birth to one or two cubs, usually in December. They stay in the den, nursing the cubs, until the cubs are strong enough to leave in early spring, when the mother leads them to the sea ice for hunting.

12. Polar Bear Population Decline: Polar bear populations in the Churchill region have dramatically decreased. In the 1980s, the population in the Western Hudson Bay area, where Churchill is located, was estimated to be around 1,200 bears. However, this number has been nearly halved in recent decades. Today, the population stands at around 600-800 bears (depending on who you talk to). This decline is attributed largely to the effects of climate change, which has caused a reduction in sea ice, affecting the bears' ability to hunt and sustain themselves.

13. Fun fact: When polar bear cubs are born, they are surprisingly small and weigh only about 0.45 to 0.68 kilograms. They are born blind, toothless, and covered in fine fur, relying completely on their mother for warmth and nourishment. Despite their tiny size at birth, cubs grow rapidly by nursing on their mother’s rich milk, which is about 31% fat. By the time they leave the den in spring, they may weigh anywhere between 10 to 15 kilograms.

14. Impact of Climate Change on Cubs: The decrease in hunting time due to melting sea ice also affects cub survival. Female polar bears must gain enough weight before entering their dens for hibernation and giving birth. If they do not have sufficient fat reserves, they are less likely to successfully raise cubs, leading to fewer births and higher cub mortality rates. The survival rate of cubs in the Churchill area has decreased as a result of shrinking sea ice and shorter hunting seasons.

So now that you have a degree in Polar Bears, let us move onto our story...

We arrived off the train and checked into our luxurious lodge.  Churchill has nothing here, 3 resturants, no hairdresser, and the accommodation is not that great.  Our room is clean and spacious and warm.  It is chilly outside and we missed the 100kmh arctic winds of the day before.  Suzie was happy, the mere thought of them scares her and they get mentioned each day.

Our hosts are Bill and Angela, they are from Hong Kong and settled in Vancouver and do the season in Churchill.  The preferred way to see the Polar Bears is by Tundra Buggies which are massive vehicles that can navigate the bumpy terrain.  Through some mixup or delay we are not booked on a Tundra Buggy and there is no availability until we leave.  This is disappointing indeed.  However, Angela does photography tours, and she takes us out looking for Polar Bears, so that was the next best thing.  This is what we did on the day we arrived.  

First rule of booking a tour, is make sure you can understand the tour guide.  Heck, I could not make out a word she said and had to keep googling what she was talking about and repeating so Sue and John could hear.  I am sick and have a cold, so my hearing is not that great - but it was as if she was speaking another language.  We also thought we would learn about photography and we were so worried that we hadn't brought our SLRs with us, but no, there were no photography lessons on this tour.

To be fair Bill and Angela said that the smaller tours were better, but we thought they were just saying that to make up for the fact that we were missing out.  Anyway, the day is beautiful and sunny - Sue kept thinking about the 100km arctic winds and how lucky we were.  But we are looking for Polar Bears and they are not beach-going creatures - we need some arctic weather.  Let it snow!

Angela's car is very nice and comfortable and she loans us her binoculars, and we start looking for Polar Bears, nothing, nothing, nothing!  Then there is all excitement about an Arctic hare.  Really an Arctic hare, I WANT TO SEE A POLAR BEAR....

Anyway, we act very excited about the Arctic Hare, pretending to understand all the history that we were being told about the Cold War and Miss Piggy the plane crash.  I am getting car sick having to google so that I could keep the conversation going.

I see so many Polar Bears that turn out to be rocks, so we would stop the car and I would say "no, it is another polar bear rock", Angela would kill herself laughing.  Where are the bears and then.....

We have seen polar bears, but they are very far away.  I should know this fact that they are wild animals, if you want to see them up close and personal - go to a zoo.  The tundra is pretty even though it is a barren land.  There are many different kinds of flowers and moss that pepper the landscape to give it a browny purple hue.

Well there are no bears, so I have to show you photos of something.  We are early in the season and we have been so lucky on this trip - this maybe the best we get.  Then we find more. and they stand up, still very far away.

Now this is getting exciting, then we see a red fox.

And on the way home we get a better angle on the bears - they are so adorable and lazy.  Bloody things wouldn't get up!  It is a lovely warm day, a truly tropical 7ºc, probably the equivalent of our 40ºc day with 100% humidity.

We are tickled pink and have loved our day.  The Tundra Buggies didn't see an Arctic Hare, so nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!

Dinner is at the Tundra Pub, I thought I had lost my sense of taste but they sure livened up for my over-salted pork riblets.  Which I thought were small pork ribs in a nice bbq sauce but they were bits of pork coated in crumbs and deep fried then oversalted.  John loves the beer and Sue loves the wine, we have had a wonderful day and all items for the trip have been ticked off.  John has done an amazing job in the planning and it has all paid off and the fact is that we missed the 100km winds! Sue checks the weather and it isn't supposed to be that great tomorrow, so a day mooching about town.

Back to the Tundra buggies.  I have put a picture of one below.  They are tall vehicles and only operate in the Nature Wilderness Park, which I will tell you about in a bit.  So if its early in the season (which we are) and the Polar Bears are not in the Park then you do not see them!  The trips are up to 8 hours long and you are not allowed off the vehicle for that time.  There is a loo on board, you have lunch in the vehicle.

The tour that we did is in a 4 wheel drive vehicle, has a permit to go into the Nature Wilderness Park but has the option to go down "Polar Bear Alley" which is not in the Park and where most of the action has been so early in the season.  So yet again, we have been extremely fortunate over an accidental forgetting to book the tour and we managed to get on one of the more flexible options.  But I digress, picture of Tundra Buggy below.

Oh by the way, you have to stay 100m away from the bears, so this photo would not happen and is possibly before that rule came into play.  Back to our moochy day around town.  I am still feeling shit, can't stop coughing, can't sleep - nor can John!!! I have to sleep sitting up, to reduce coughing, my ribcage aches everytime I cough - which as you know when you gotta cough you gotta cough.  But at least the 100km winds haven't come back.  It is just above freezing, but the wind makes the real feel temp -5ºc.  It is quite chilly walking around town, but we soldier on and explore the metropolis of Churchill.

We popped into the visitor centre which has a good display on Polar Bears and the trading routes that brought trappers and the like to the area.  Churchill was also used to set up camp for the US Army and Navy during the Cold War.  We popped into Polar Bear International, a charity organisation to track and use that information to make politicians and climate change leaders aware of the issues being caused by Climate warming.  

The thing that I did not know that I found fascinating is the evolution of the Sea Ice.  I naively thought it was frozen sea, oh no it isn't.  Basically the sea water has to go through some process of getting cold enough and then ridding itself of enough salt so that it can freeze.  This enables the production of algae which phytoplankton feed on and fish feed on and seals feed on and Polar Bears feed on...  Oh the circle of life.

Enough of the school work.  It was very interesting - they seem to be an organisation worth supporting.  If you are interested their website is https://polarbearsinternational.org/.

There are only 3 restaurants in town, so lunch at the Seaport, dinner at the Tundra Pub (I stay clear of the pork ribs).  Ptarmigan is open Thu - Mon, I have emailed them for a reservation but heard nothing.  There is also the Lazy Bear Cafe but it serves Elk and fish, so not sure we will be trying that one.

Thursday comes around soon enough and we are booked on an all day tour (not in a Tundra Buggy, but in a 4x4 which will go to all the same places).  We are there bright and early and off we go, the other couple who were supposed to join us did not show - so it is us three and Danea.  Danea is Inuk, which I learned is the singular of Inuit.  Inuit are the group of people and an individual from that group is Inuk.  The language is Inuktitut and this is her mother tongue.  This was nice to see and witness as in Alaska we had heard about how the traditional languages were outlawed.  Anywho...  Danea is lovely and at first we go the exact same routes as Angela took us, and I am thinking oh boy we have wasted all this money.  The day is cold and overcast, and starting to clear.  This is Danea's first year as a Polar Bear guide but she has worked with the Polar Bear Conservation centre - so she knew enough.  First stop Polar Bear Alley where we saw Mum and two cubs, probably the same ones we saw the other day but they were a little more active.

Then we move on and then we go to Bird Cove which is in the Wildlife Reserve.  Which Danea tells us was turned into a Reserve by the State of Manetoba because the Candadian Goverment wouldn't class it as National Park.  In 1978, the Churchill Wildlife Management Area was formally established by the province of Manitoba to ensure the protection of the region’s unique wildlife and habitats. The area spans approximately 850,000 hectares along the western shore of Hudson Bay, encompassing tundra, boreal forest, and marine environments. This vast area includes critical habitats for polar bears, beluga whales, arctic foxes, caribou, and many migratory birds.  So the Tundra Buggies and other permitted vehicles are only allowed on designated roads and you need to stay at least 100m from the wild life.  

As we drive there she spots another lone bear on the rock, he is quite far away - but she informs me we will be coming back this way, so we will check him out.

So off we go to Bird Cove to see if the Mum and cub are still there.  There is another car already there - that is a good sign and sure enough they are there.  There they are, Mum and her cub.  The bears are so cute and they have a wonderful way ove moulding themselves into the rocks to find the comfiest position. this cub didn't like the wind and always found such a sheltered spot.  They are so adorable!

Then they start to relocate, I guess it is getting a bit windy for the cub.  So they clamber up the rocks and find another possie.  It is just truly wonderful to see and experience and so close.  

This day cannot get any better, surely!  We then make our way back to town to have lunch and pick up some half day guests.  Off to the Seaport Inn for lunch, I think we have nearly tried everything on the menu.

We sit with Danea and Sue is very good at finding out about people, so enquires away and we learn about her grandmother who was taken away when she was 5 and sent to a residential school as part of the government's ethnic cleansing program.  Gobble down lunch and then back out there, we pick up the guests and go to the Wildlife Management Area.  

On our way out to the Research Centre, we drove past the Polar Bear Jail or holding facility and there was some action.  Danea having worked there knew that they must be relocating another bear, so we hung around to watch.  This program is part of a bear human coexist conservation program.  If a bear wonders into town, it is shoo'd out by tooting cars, or helicopters.  It is marked and if it comes back again, same thing happens, but a third time and he/she is captured and put into the Pola Bear holding facility.  Where they will stay without food for 1 month.  They are given water, but it is important for them to learn that this is not a source for food.  After the month is up they tranquilise the bear and move him/her to the Wildlife conservation area far away from town.  We saw this happen, it was incredible.

You think well we will see more of the same, but I guess being brought up in Africa, Sue and I knew that this is wildlife anything can happen or not happen.  We go back to find the Mum and her cub who have now moved to a more sheltered spot, that the cub clearly approves of because he or she did not move and inch whilst we were there.

Not much happeneing here, lets go off to Polar Bear Alley.  Remember the Tundra buggies cannot go there.  So off we go, the new guests on the tour are so excited and babbling away.  I was thinking to myself how lucky we are, Sue keeps saying 'this is the best day ever" and John is trying to guess which part of Canada the Swiss guest is from!

We see the Mum and her two cubs from this morning and they are a little more active, which is brilliant.  Because they are on top of the rocks, sometimes if you get too close you cannot see on top of the rocks.  

So we drive closer to see if we can see them and we sport the loner that we had seen earlier that morning and we get a great view of him.

Below is a Youtube video of the Polar Bears and the relocation - enjoy.

 OH MY GOODNESS - Can this day get any better?  Only if we get a chance to see the Aurora.  The KP Index is 8, the last one we saw was 4, so this will be a mega storm.  But it is still a bit cloudy, where are the 100kmh winds when you need them?

Our for dinner, I am exhausted and Sue suggests Ptarmagan, who have not replied to my email.  I did not want to go there and then have to come back to Seaport and miss the Aurora.  But luckily for us all, Sue insisted and there was a table for us and the meal was the best we have had in Churchill.

The Aurora predictor has a cloud cover satellite overlay and it was partial cloud, so Angela picks us up at Ptarmagan and we go outside of the town, why not walk there? You may ask - but there are Polar Bears, so you have to pay someone for the protection of their car.  Angela is a professional photographer, so we may get some tips, if we can understand her.

When we first got there, we couldn't see anything - the moon was gorgeous, red and half.  The stars were out twinkling, which was also really nice. By the way, those specs in the photos are not a dirty window or lens those are the millions of stars we could see.  A faint hue of an aurora but nothing like the 8 that is predicted.  

Then I turned around and took a photo of the other side of town and could see red.  So we hop into the bus and Anglea drives us to another spot.

You can see it starting to form with the misty white swirling formations then you see some red.  Below are heaps of photos, there are so many to try and demonstrate the many forms and changes that the Aurora takes.  It was out of this world!

It is freezing, Angela asks John to take a walk around the bus to check for Polar Bears.  He walks off humphing - yeah right, why do I have to check for bears?? 

Anyway, no bears so we continue on, it is freezing and our necks are sore from looking up - but you cannot stop watching it. I love this photo below because Sue's face captures the WOW factor.  it also shows you how large it was as you can see it in the background but Sue is looking in a different direction and still seeing it.  JUST AMAZING...

And then she changes, shapes and the colours mesmerise us - I mean the day was perfect at 11am, then got better at 1pm, got even better at 4pm and no way it could be better - but it did.  What an amazing leg to this trip, I cannot thank John enough for arranging this and Sue for being with us to experience it.

We now wend our way to Maui, we have a number of flights and hotels to stay in before we get there - but all worth it to experience what we have experienced.  JUST AWESOME, astounding, incredible, extraordinary, breathtaking, marvelous, spectacular, unbelieveable - so very very lucky.