It’s International Polar Bear Day 2024 which gives me the excuse to share some polar bear shots and snippets of my first trip to Churchill. Like a proud parent whipping out photos and offering stories at every opportunity, here I am. I just feel so very lucky to have been able to witness these elusive and threatened animals in the wild.
It was 2021 when we decided to finish off our epic trans-Canadian road trip with a journey to Churchill, Manitoba. Some would say we saved the best till last.
We left our RV in Montreal and travelled up to Winnipeg for a few days, giving us time to unwind after three weeks of ‘vanlife’ and long drives and to sort a tonne of laundry. We had in our minds earlier in the trip that if we were on schedule and had stuck to budget that we would go ahead and book the Frontiers North adventure to Churchill…and things worked in our favour!
It’s not a cheap trip to do, but it is absolutely the trip of a lifetime (well it was meant to be a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience but I prefer to keep optimistic and have every plan to go again!) Because the rest of the trip was on such a tight budget I felt uncomfortable spending so much on an organised trip but some things are truly worthwhile, and it was (I think they also offer a credit or instalment payment option now as well). I’ll have a separate post on the full details of the trip, but we chose the option to travel by rail up by VIA rail, with the journey back being via plane to Winnipeg, all organised as part of the Frontiers Package.
Below- Like a house cat, this bear felt comfortable enough to bear all
Above- a beautiful polar bear lives up to it’s Latin name Ursus Maritimus or ‘sea bear.’ The excitement of spotting wildlife in their natural environment never tires. These creatures were a little harder to find amongst the large white boulders on the Hudson Bay shore.
This Bear Roams…The polar bear is forever roaming. Unlike other bears, the polar bear will roam hundreds of kilometres from home. Not by choice, however. They don’t have a territory and follow the sea ice to hunt for seal prey, the ice platform is their link to food. This ice is of course forever changing, both seasonally, and environmentally. The bears’ main threat, as we all know all too well, is the receding sea ice due to global environmental changes like rising temperatures. For the bears on Hudson Bay, the seasonal wait for the return of sea ice, and therefore their path to food, is getting longer and bears are fasting for longer, using up their fat reserves and resulting in scrawny, unhealthy looking bears and their potential starvation. We learnt a bit about how the bears are ‘scored’ on their size and body condition.
*It feels so unusual to directly relate a mammal’s weight and how fat it is to it’s health, the bigger the better-but the polar bear is unique in that it doesn’t develop heart disease from fat build up in the way a human or other animal would. Their genes mean they can build up their fat reserve when the going is good so there are plenty of calories ready to burn when their food source is low or nothing and they are forced to starve. We very often saw them grazing on tundra vegetation which looked strange, very cattle/sheep like from a distance. Whilst they will graze lightly on some vegetation and sea kelp for some vitamins and minerals and some nourishment, this is not enough for a bear to survive let alone thrive on.
I was glad to see that the bears and cubs we encountered from our tundra buggy looked pretty fat and full, plodding along at no speed, unphased by us, at most a little curious. When the bears were moving at speed (mostly when other bears were moving into their area and they felt threatened and moved on) they moved quickly, but just enough, their wobbly fat was apparent. They weren’t showing off their athletic potential, the cubs always waddling on behind. It was clear that their aim was not to waste unnecessary calories here, but to safely move on and rest further. Conserve the calories, a sensible plan.
Watching a mother and cub(s) together was so endearing, particularly as these were not young cubs, you could easily mistake them as full adults if they were on their own. One of the mothers was relaxing in the tundra with her sub-adult male cub. We were told that actually the cub was of the age where he could be forced to leave their mother at any point and go it alone. As soon as the mother were to meet a breeding male and fall pregnant she would force him away to fend for himself, tough love at it’s harshest. He would have been capably following in his mothers’ footsteps for long enough that he could manage perfectly fine, but seeing him rolling around playfully and then walking shoulder to shoulder with his mother you would think they would be together for life, or that they should be.
His mother’s protective gaze warning him of an incoming male bear, or almost eye-rolling at some of his antics playing around in the snow was somehow so relatable, so human. This is not something I’d really seen on the countless documentaries I’ve watched where the focus tends to be on their strength and aggression, their dominance in nature. For a moment, you could easily forget the potential power behind these perfectly adapted arctic predators.
We were told that in the past the town rubbish dump became a draw for the hungry bears who would turn to the garbage as a quick and easy source of food. But some came dependent on this quick fix and were instinctively drawn back each year. This drew the bears dangerously close to the town which has always been an issue that has been managed really well but something to be avoided for obvious reasons. Humans and bears have lived side by side in these parts for many years, but some human-animal conflict is unavoidable. It also of course is unnatural for the bears to rely on bin meals and can make them a little lazy and a little in less of a rush to get out onto the sea ice and ready to hunt for seals as soon as is possible.
The solution? Well, repeat offenders end up behind bars. Yes, polar bear jail may sound like the stuff of fiction, but it’s actually been a pretty sound way of managing any bear-Churchill community conflict. Formally known as the Polar Bear Holding Facility, this building is a specialist facility where bears that are considered ‘troublesome’ or dangerous can be isolated for some time (also identified and tagged for monitoring) before being relocated further up the Hudson Bay in the hope they will stay further away from the town in future and the bears can co-exist safely with the townfolk of Churchill. Generally they are trapped in something that does look very basic but does the trick, they are detained in cells and not fed. This sounds shocking, but is more of a deterrent for the bears so they associate the area with a lack of food and are unlikely to therefore return to the town. They are used to starving outside of the jail for extended periods of time in the wild, so it isn’t cruel, rather a necessary tactic. They cannot afford for the bears to associate the place with enjoyment and an easy food source, otherwise they will be back again next year which is what was happening with the dump.
Above, the Polar Bear Holding Facility which is visually stunning, along with the polar bear ‘traps.’
Perhaps it is not the perfect solution and the idea of detaining and moving them off via helicopter in a net whilst being sedated looks an unnatural sight I am sure. However, it does seem to be the best solution for now. Prior to the building of the detention centre, bothersome bears were shot! You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘a fed bear is a dead bear’ to refer to when animals associate humans with food after being innocently fed causing them to then get maybe too close to humans or populated areas in search of food in future…often it results in them being euthanised. Even waste bins are designed to be polar-bear safe and food/cooking smells are to be contained inside as much as possible.
There are always ideas floating around to improve bear-Churchill relations and there are currently proposals to relocate offending bears within Wapusk Park instead of further up the bay as usual, but nothing official seems to have been put into place yet.
There have been a few attacks in town, the last more infamous one in 2013, but I feel like it’s managed well. The town benefits from bear tourism and there is a valid respect for the animals, they are not seen as pests and there is generally a decent relationship. People are encouraged to report bear sightings in town and if you go to visit Cape Merry, a historical point on the bay for example you are very aware of the (super friendly and affable) armed guards, there are nightly patrols and sometimes a curfew alarm system. When we visited there was a 9pm curfew which alarmed through the town to warn us not to be out alone if walking home from somewhere for example. It is generally advised to walk as a group anyway, but particularly at night time. These didn’t feel frightening or intrusive, just sensible and necessary precautions. It seems like a small price to pay to be able to live alongside these magnificent artic mammals.
We enjoyed our evenings together as a group of 16(ish), getting to know one another and debriefing in the comfort of one of the cosy inns after a day out on the tundra. We would share photos and stories and a mutual excitement for the day ahead.
I’ll include more specific details of the trip itself in another post, but for anyone who is considering taking a trip to Churchill, quite simply …do it!
In the meantime, or for anyone else who might like to enjoy the bears from the comfort of their own home, I would advise you to check out Polar Bears International who have webcams where you can watch the bears come and go in the wilds of Churchill, they also have a really great tracking page where you can track the location of some collared bears out in the bay and find out more about them- and even follow their journeys. Polar Bears International are a great conservation organisation made up of scientists, researchers and the who’s who of the polar bear world in Churchill. They have some great information on bears and do some fantastic work if you feel like you might be able to make a donation to the cause.
www.polarbearsinternational.org
www.frontiersnorth.com for the tour company we used and to check out some of their other exciting packages like the Beluga summer adventures
Anyway, long live the sea bear, “Happy International Polar Bear Day”.
TGR x