Travel and Tour Guides

Many of our travel guides offer extensive information about what to do, where to stay, and how to get there.

Polar Bear Express

By Carole Herdegen

What more could I have hoped for than to share a flight with a group of polar bear enthusiasts on a trip from Winnipeg, Manitoba to the Canadian province's far northern city of Churchill on the Hudson Bay? Our mission was to spend a week of observing and photographing polar bears - the largest carnivores in the world.

Churchill is only a small port city but well known for its exporting of grain shipments. Over many years of history, groups of up to 1000 polar bears have annually passed through this area when the Hudson Bay becomes frozen over. This is the ideal time for the bears to ice fish for seals. It is for this reason that Churchill has been called the "Polar Bear Capital of the World".

There is no other place in the entire arctic world where so many polar bears can be photographed in their natural habitat. It is during this one-month period when the bears patiently wait for the freezing ice to support their weight, photographers anxiously gather to photograph these spectacular but dangerous animals.

Seals are the main diet of the polar bears. Although the bears are excellent swimmers, they are not fast or agile enough to capture their prey in the water. Therefore, they wait until winter arrives at Hudson Bay because ice fishing for seals greatly improves their odds. When seals are under the ice but must now get their air through small holes in the ice, the polar bear is ready and waiting. It is not uncommon for a polar bear to patiently watch over a breathing hole for hours. When a seal's nose breaks through the hole for air, with a fast but deadly swipe of his paw, the bear is rewarded with his first meal since April.

I have long looked forward to experiencing this special period in the life cycle of the polar bears. As they make their way to the ice, I will now be waiting to observe and photograph them. But, as these animals are protective of their young and can be most vicious, how will I accomplish this?

In the distance I saw "the tundra buggy lodge". It appears as an all-white train situated on the frozen edge of the great Hudson Bay. Instead of sitting on normal steel railroad wheels, the tundra buggies have enormous rubber tires comparable to those one sees on large earth moving equipment. The tundra buggy has been custom built for the conditions of the arctic. It serves as both a hotel and vantage point for observing and photographing the bears. Each September, the hotel-train is transported to the area and remains stationary during the entire bear-watching season.

As I approached what would be my new wintry accommodation, I experienced excitement as I began taking pictures of a few bears that were already surrounding the train to greet us. Actually, the bears were present because they could already smell the aromas that poured from the open kitchen window into the cold artic air. With a pictorial welcome like this, I knew I would be in for a fabulous week.

The interior of this "Polar Bear Express", as I preferred to name it, was similar to a long passenger train. There were two sleeper cars with single rooms on each side of a central corridor that contained shared shower and bathroom facilities. There was also a lounge car. Here, each evening, our group would meet to talk about our bear-watching experiences of the day, download our photographic images and enjoy a glass of wine before dinner. The adjacent car was the dining car where we were served our meals, a kitchen for meal preparation as well as quarters for the staff. When all the cars are joined together, the train on its giant wheels makes quite an impression sitting all by its lonesome in the Canadian wilderness.

From sunrise to sunset, my camera would be in-the- ready position to capture the spectacular photographic offerings of the arctic. And, just when I thought it was the end of a perfect day, the aurora borealis or Northern Lights would entertain us with a spectacular and colorful show. Only in a dark sky and far away from city lights can one fully appreciate this magical display. I wonder what the ancient peoples of the North must have thought when they observed this phenomenon. "The gods are angry." or, "The lights are the dancing souls of our ancestors." were probably only a couple of statements of wisdom the tribal leader would pass onto his people thus perpetuating the ancient myths of the Inuit.

Each morning after breakfast, the mobile tundra buggy would be waiting to take our group to photograph the polar bears. We also saw Arctic foxes and hares, snowy owls and the ptarmigan that likewise donned an Arctic coat of white feathers. When animals were not nearby, I could now capture the stark and dramatic images of the Arctic landscape. The clumps of wind-blown trees, the glistening icy rivers and streams, the red bushes and the red and yellow lichen popping up here and there on the snow covered land created a myriad of beautiful images of the far north.

The polar bear, the largest specie in the genus of bears, actually evolved thousands of years ago from the brown bear. To survive the winter's sub-zero temperatures and the severe winds of the Arctic, the polar bear has had two major physiological problems to overcome: 1. Retaining its body at the right temperature and, 2. Storing sufficient energy to last between meals. These periods could be as short as a few days or as long as a few months. A polar bear's fur, tough hide and layer of blubber are the insulation it requires for the winter's frigid temperatures.

The season of the greatest food shortages for the polar bears is the late summer and early fall. This is when there is open water and the bears are forced to spend their time on the land. One must now ask, "Why is the Latin name for polar bear "Ursus maritimus" or, "sea bear"? The answer is that the bears spend the greater part of their yearly life cycle on large ice floes actually in the sea. Unlike their brown cousins, polar bears do not hibernate. In summer when they are land-bound, they slow down their metabolism to conserve energy. This is accomplished by taking long catnaps. I have also seen bears walking slowly with their eyes closed, as if they were sleepwalking.

Because of their size, polar bears, like lions, use twice the amount of energy used by almost all other animals. This is the reason polar bears appear to be so docile when we observed them from our tundra buggy. However, like the lethargic-looking lion, appearances are deceiving, so caution is always the caveat of photographers.

There are many problems looming in the future for the polar bears. Their climate is changing. The spring break-up of the ice in the Hudson Bay and other Arctic waters is now earlier and the freeze-over in the winter is now later than it was 20 years ago. Current data reveals both the birth weight and the adult weight of polar bears are down at least by 10 percent since 1980. In fact, in some of my photographic images of the bears, one can actually see protruding bones on the back of their necks and spines.

Prior to leaving for Churchill last November, the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) issued their assessment of the Arctic climate change and its impacts. The Arctic Council comprises high-level representatives from the 8 Arctic nations (Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States). IASC is an international scientific organization appointed by 18 national academies of science. In the section on climate impact on the polar bears, the report states: "Polar bears are dependent on sea ice, where they hunt ice-living seals and use ice corridors to move from one area to another. Polar bears are unlikely to survive as a species if there is an almost complete loss of summer sea-ice cover, which is projected to occur before the end of this century by some climate models. The loss of polar bears is likely to have significant and rapid consequences for the ecosystems that they currently occupy."

Natural Habitat Adventures is the company doing the best job in bringing the public "up close and personal" with the polar bears of Churchill. Their expedition leaders are the world's top natural scientists and photographers. Not only is it a responsible adventure company based in Boulder, Colorado but also it has partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to make financial contributions work on conservation and preservation of the Arctic ecosystem and the polar bears.

Click here for a photo gallery of more polar bear images.

A Stopover in Winnipeg

Logistically, no trip to Churchill and the polar bears can take place without a stopover in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Travelers should plan to stay in Winnipeg a day or two before and after the non-commercial flight to Churchill.

Winnipeg sits at the junction of two rivers, the Red and the Assiniboine. It is because of its location, there have been settlements here for thousands of years. Today, Winnipeg is an important mid-size, multicultural city with festivals, art, music and delicious food offered by 700 restaurants, a fourth of them ethnic and representing some 30 countries.

I do not believe many people in the United States know much about Winnipeg, their neighbor to the north. Here are only a couple of facts that certainly interested me.

In 1914, a soldier from Winnipeg, Captain Harry Colebourn, took a black bear cub to England as his Regiment's mascot. He named the cub "Winnie" after his hometown. When Captain Colebourn's regiment left for the battlefields in France, he gave Winnie to the London Zoo. The author A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin loved Winnie so much that this inspired the creation of stories about "Winnie the Pooh", a bear and a boy.

Love them or hate them, it seems that cell-phones are here to stay. And, the inventor of the cell-phone was Marty Cooper, a resident of Winnipeg.

The Manitoba Museum is top on the list of places to visit in the city. I found this museum an important tool in learning about the province, its history, its culture, its environment and its people. An easy walk through many settings and interpretive displays further enhances this educational tour. The Manitoba Museum has won the Michelin Green Guide's top award, the Province of Manitoba's Tourism Service Excellence Award and many other distinguished honors.

If you are interested in watching and photographing the polar bears or if you are concerned about their well-being in the Arctic you can do these things

Experience a Natural Habitat Adventure trip to Churchill, "the polar bear capital".
Join the World Wildlife Fund and support the work they do.

The polar bears and the Arctic tundra they live in are in danger and we need to make changes so future generations can enjoy and have the same experiences that I had in the Canadian Arctic.

Natural Habitat Adventures
2945 Center Green Court
Boulder, CO 80301
Tel: (800) 543-8917
Int'l: (303) 449-3711
Fax: (303) 449-3712
Web: www.nathab.com
E-mail: info@nathab.com

World Wildlife Fund
1250 24th Street NW
Washington, DC 20037-1132
Tel: (202) 293-4800
Toll-free: (800) CALL-WWF
Web: www.worldwildlife.org

For travel information on Winnipeg
Destination Winnipeg
Toll-free from anywhere in North America
(800) 665-0204
Web: www.destinationwinnipeg.ca
Visitors Information Centre
259 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3B 2A9

For a free copy of Impacts of a Warming Arctic
International Arctic Research Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7740
Tel: (907) 474-5818
Fax: (907) 474-6722
Web: www.acia.uaf.edu

Find maps of Winnipeg and Hudson Bay in the TravelSTORE

« Back to Carole's Chronicles