Churchill Canada
Polar Bear Capital of the world
This is a selection of pictures we took during our trip to Churchill, Canada during October 2003.
Churchil is on the Hudson Bay, about 600 miles north ofWinipeg an about 600
Miles south of the Arctic Circle.
Our tour started in Winnipeg. We met our group there and flew to Churchill the
next morning. Our first stop was the Polar Bear jail. Bears that wander into
town are captured, put in jail and then transported by helicopter to a safe
location away from town.
We spent two full days in a Tundra Buggy with our group of 18 hearthy souls.
Tundra buggies are very large specialty vehicles designed to travel on rough
terain, There is ample room inside, there are two rows of seats (school bus
style) with a wide aisle between them. There is plenty of room to stand but
it is not safe to stand while moving. They stop often when wild life is spotted.
We lost track of the number of bears we saw. We also saw Arctic Fox, Arctic
Owls, Snow Shoe Hares and Ptarmigan. Ptarmigan are small white birds about the
size of a chicken. They are hard to spot as the blend in witht the snow. The
Buggy
has a steel deck at the rear for wildlife viewing when we stopped.
The weather was overcast most of the time which contributed to the lack of color in many of our pictures.
The third day of our trip was spent looking at some of the other sites in the
area and included a helicopter tour of the area surrounding Churchill.
The temperature ranged from 10 degrees on our second morning to about 30 degrees.
There was a light snow cover over most of the area. The landscape is stark with
only and occasional windblown black Spruce tree and patches of willows.
We enjoyed the trip and the company of the members of the tour.