We joined a trip to the town of Churchill, organised by Natural Habitat Adventures – a group who claim to be world leaders in conservation travel. Their by-line is “conservation through exploration”. The idea is that they organise trips for small numbers of people to inaccessible locations in a responsible way. Churchill is a small settlement on the western side of the Hudson Bay known as the Polar Bear capital of the world. In October and November each year, hundreds of bears converge on the area. Polar Bears like to eat seals. They hunt seals on the sea ice, so in the summer, when there is no ice, they get hungry. Churchill is pretty much right on the point where the sea ice starts to form each year. Polar Bears are traditionally very solitary creatures. Possibly one of the loneliest mammals on the planet. However, this behaviour is briefly put to one side for the bears of the southern and western Hudson Bay. These bears make up two to three thousand of the world’s total population of maybe 30,000 animals. Exact numbers are difficult to assess. See https://www.arcticwwf.org/wildlife/polar-bear/polar-bear-population/ Back in the 1950’s it was estimated there were only 5,000 bears left worldwide. There has been an enormous rebound since the international agreement of 1973 to seriously limit hunting. Humans have always been their biggest threat. These days, some populations of bears continue to flourish while others suffer from the ubiquitous combined pressures of habit encroachment and climate change. A few years ago, National Geographic published a distressing video of a starving polar bear along with a dialog that pointed squarely at global warming as being responsible for the poor animal’s imminent demise. For a while it looked like polar bears were going to become the poster child of the climate change lobby. Fortunately, sanity ruled. National Geographic were playing fast and loose with the facts for the sake of a story. The bear simply could have been old, ill, or suffering from a degenerative disease. Overall, polar bears are doing fine. You can still hunt bears though. For around £30,000 an Inuit hunter will sell you his allocation and help you find a bear to murder.
In 2021, Churchill had a population of just 870. Tourism is the major source of income. Some whale watching and some aurora spotting but mostly polar bear safaris in October and November. To the west of Churchill is a large conservation area that used to be a rocket launching range. From 1956 to 1984 rockets were fired into the upper atmosphere for research purposes. These days a handful of special trucks are licenced to take tourists out in search of polar bears. The trucks are custom built and quite enormous. They can easily travel across the rough terrain while at the same time keeping visitors safe from wandering polar bears. The bears are wonderful to watch but it is prudent to remember that these are the world’s largest terrestrial carnivore. Half a ton of apex predator. And they are hungry.
Our trip began in Winipeg. Here, at the rather lovely, Fort Gary hotel, we met up with the rest of our group, collected coats and boots, attended an introductory talk, attended an introductory meal and had a tour of Winipeg. Unfortunately, at about this time my small camera developed a fault. It was not focussing correctly. Looked fine through the view finder but the final images were terrible. What makes this worse is that I did not notice until I took the images from the camera several weeks later. My main camera is a Canon EOS 5D MkIV. This is a truly beautiful camera and much better than me at taking photographs. However, it is a bit large, so for smaller jobs I use a Canon Powershot GX1. This is also excellent. Pocket sized with a telephoto lens and a proper view finder – essential in bright snowy conditions. Ideal for a day trip to see the sights of Winnipeg.
We started the day by visiting a field full of bison. Big, shaggy cows that reminded me of Yaks. We were driven into the middle in a rather battered bus and warned not to get out. The North American plains used to support over 30 million of these animals living in balance with the local tribes. Then came the cowboys and someone had the great idea that an effective way to get rid of the North American Indians (pesky locals) would be to exterminate the bison that they depended on. By 1900 the entire bison population was down to about 1,000. Now there are around 200,000 in the whole of North America. On reflection, I can see that Canada has a long history of hunting creatures to extinction but despite that mostly everyone we met still seemed very keen on hunting and fishing. Lessons yet to be learned. As we left the two-acre field our guide remarked “I hope you enjoyed your safari”, which caused me to wonder about how far the meaning of a word like “safari” can be stretched. The rest of the day was a relaxed meander round some parks and monuments. We eventually ended up in a museum where there was even more bison romanticising. Also, a ship which was supposed to illustrate early trade but seemed more like a pantomime pirate vessel to me. Next morning, we flew to Churchill.
Churchill has the wonderful air of being a frontier town about it. Not quite so extreme as some of the settlements we had encountered in Nunavut, but still a long, long way from the hustle and bustle of a modern city. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived. Our group of sixteen was assigned to a bus with Judy, our group leader, and went for a drive around town. The road from the airport is mostly a dirt track. There is not much to see in Churchill. Houses, a few hotels and restaurants and some basic facilities. Some interesting art, painting on rocks and houses, remains from an event a few years ago. I was struck by the polar bear warning signs. This is not a place to wander around on your own. At the coast is an Inuit inuksuk – a construction of rocks used as a cultural symbol. Made a good place for a group photograph. Also gave me a chance to look out across the Hudson Bay – somewhere I have wanted to visit for a long time. The bay is a massive salt-water inlet, technically part of the Atlantic Ocean. Named after the Englishman, Sir Henry Hudson, another character in the story of the Northwest passage. He spent time mapping the bay but met his end when his crew mutinied in June 1611 and set him adrift in a small boat, possibly not far from Churchill.
The bears come here because the ice starts forming here. Winter is coming. By the end of November there will be sea ice and the bears will be gone. For us, in October, it is still getting chilly. Minus 24°C is the Churchill record low for October. That would have been cold. While we were there the temperature hovered around freezing, even so, there was often snow in the air. In the morning we were introduced to our truck and our truck driver, a big, cheerful bloke and clearly a bit of a character. The trucks, called Polar Rovers, are designed specifically for this job. Apart from being massive, they are also capable off-road and self-contained. Water, food and a toilet are all provided. You get on the truck via a special raised platform and get off, at the end of the day, the same way. The truck has an outside viewing platform, but you are still way above the ground, safe from bears. Did I mention the Polar Rover was big? Seating for about forty so with just sixteen of us there was plenty of space and everyone could have a window seat.
The sun was just coming up as we left the boarding area along with four other vehicles. They like to make an early start here. A Polar Rover is only quite slow but even so, on the rough terrain, you needed to hang on a bit. For an hour or so we lurched and banged our way along following rough tracks marking the passage of many other trucks. Then our driver saw a bear. I was immediately reminded of spotting polar bears from the Hurtigruten ship we had been on earlier. A little white dot in the distance. We waited a while and then moved closer. The driver used his judgment to decide whether we were disturbing the bear. Clearly it would be a bit irresponsible to simply chase the animals around in trucks, so they try and tread lightly. As lightly as possible in a 25-ton truck. To be fair, the bears do not seem too concerned about the rovers. Possibly they have got used to them or maybe they hope there may be some food involved. At times they are quite curious although they are never given any food. Elsewhere in the world you would not be able to do this at all. In Svalbard, for example, it is illegal to hunt, lure, pursue, feed or disturb a polar bear. Around Churchill the polar bear viewing is highly regulated although part of this might be driven by protectionism of the tourist industry. Natural Habitat make a big issue in pointing out that they are one of very few organisations with permits to visit the whole conservation area.
We finally got reasonably close to a bear so, along with several other rovers, we stopped for lunch. This proved to be a pleasant affair. A range of food was produced from cupboards. Hot food in flasks. Cold nibbles. Even some wine. The pattern was established for the next couple of days. Up early. Bounce off across the tundra in the morning light while sipping coffee. Wander around until we found a bear. Spend time on the rear viewing platform trying to get some half decent photographs. Leisurely break for lunch. More bear spotting and then back as dusk was falling. It was interesting and fun, but we thought, after three days that we had done about enough of this.
On the last day in the rovers, there was an unexpected drama. Bears are normally very solitary and only get forced together here while they wait for the ice. Most of the bears are single males. On the last day we saw a mother with her cub. Typically bears have one or two cubs which they look after for two or three years. The male bears have nothing to do with bringing up the cubs, in fact, they are a bit of a danger and have been known to attack and eat cubs. Especially when they are hungry in the late summer before the ice forms. So, we spotted a mother and cub on a small spit of land and a larger male bear making its way towards them. The mum played it cool for a little while and then decided to make her escape. She took her cub to the end of the rocky spit and then clambered into the water. The cub was clearly less competent at swimming and mostly just hung onto her back. They swam round to shore well away from the male. He appeared to lose interest once they took to the water. By the time the mother and cub were shaking themselves dry the big male had laid down and gone back to sleep.
Our last day at Churchill we went on a helicopter ride. Once again, this was very expensive but so worthwhile. We are unlikely to ever visit Churchill again. It is an amazing place and flying is a terrific way to see it. Just three of us in the aircraft along with the pilot, Bob, who explained he had been flying bush helicopters for several decades. He was certainly an excellent pilot and truly knowledgeable. By flying we could range much further out than in the rovers and get a much better sense of just how many polar bears were around. Most of the bears were along the coast so we flew a zig-zag path along the beach. Did we mind doing some sharper turns Bob asked? No we did not so we ended up doing some very exciting manoeuvres. Great fun.
Occasionally bears must be handled. Sometimes they are fitted with tracking collars or simply need to be measured and examined for scientific purposes. Occasionally they may need to go to prison. Bad bears, those behaving in a way which is causing problems for the settlement get locked away. Solitary confinement in an old military building. Later that day we visited the polar bear holding facility. Bears are locked up here until the ice has formed and they can be taken well way. Initially, the bears were fed until it was found that the following year, they came to the facility hoping for more food. To catch a bear, you approach in helicopter and shoot it with a tranquilising dart. The sedated bear can then be handled, netted or whatever. The bears do not like this, and they remember. Bob could point out bears that had experienced this because as the helicopter approached, they promptly sat down so that they could not be shot in the bum again.
A short but fun dog sled ride plus a visit to a souvenir shop rounded out the day. Then came the flight back to Winnipeg and by late evening we were back in Fort Gary hotel enjoying a farewell dinner with the rest of the group. Next day we flew to Calgary and a couple of days later were back in the UK.
