22 July

Churchill, Manitoba

Off to the Polar Bear Capital of the world!  However I’m here for work as well as play.  Had been having a lot of trouble getting a response or contact with the doctors directly but figured if it didn’t pan out I had plenty of writing up to do and probably needed some rest as well. But turned out one of the main doctors I was chasing was on the plane with me – I saw the hospital driver with a sign waiting to pick him up so I was able to make contact. Lucky break.

The Hotel Churchill picked us up as we are hiring a car off of them.  Tamarack rentals is the only place listed online but it sounds like something has happened for them this season and they are not responding or renting out cars. Thankfully a little bit of persistence which included contacting the local council here led me to find out that one of the hotels rents out cars – and it is half the price of Tamarack so that was a lucky break too!

The fella showed us the cars – we had 2 left to choose from. He recommended the Yukon but said it had no front bumper bar… Indeed it also had half a left side window and bits were held on with rope. Our thinking was though that if the bumper was already gone we couldn’t knock it off… ?   Got closer and saw the windscreen was also full of chips and cracks. Either people have done some wild bushwhacking in this or the polar bears had a bit of a go??  Asked the guy if we should note the damage so we don’t get blamed? “ Nah just as long as you can drive it back, we don’t care.”  Ok that’s pretty cool except the drive-it-back bit was a concern considering we were going to be driving around in polar bear country where they say don’t get out of the car??!

It seems like most people come here on tours or tour packages and rarely rent cars. It’s probably a good thing in that this small area with fragile environment probably couldn’t handle loads of crazy tourists tearing around but it’s also a shame – because as usual – by getting a bit off the standard tourist track you can experience so much more.

We managed to see lots of interesting side tracks and find bird hides and lookouts and creeks and swamps full of interesting birds. Ron even got to flick his lure around – of course with one eye over his shoulder in case the bears had decided to wander a bit more inland…

Another amazing find was this ‘village’ lost in the forest that noone mentions and is in none of the tourist info- it was off a track and was an entire village worth of concrete foundations hidden in the forest. The story of the Sayisi Dene Indigenous people, the way they were treated and how they survived and relocated – all in recent times – is fascinating, tragic and heroic – worth reading… Read about it here.

Churchill is completely cut off and has no roads in or out – so only a small network of dirt roads on the peninsula. We decided to head down some of these tracks and have a bit of an explore.  Just out of town near the mouth of the river we looked out into the river/estuary and saw loads of white beluga whales cruising around in the water.  This is another thing Churchill is famous for in summer. About 3000 beluga whales come to breed in the river here each summer and they are super easy to spot and spend time with.  About 15 minutes outside of town down the track we saw a polar bear on the side of the road that got startled and bounded up onto the rocks. It sat there for a bit, looking at us and then headed off into the rocks. I was so excited- I have always wanted to see a polar bear – I hoped to see one here but I think maybe didn’t really expect it.

After all people come here on tours and miss seeing them! But here was one by the road! I could hardly believe it.   We did note however that when it disappeared into the rocks, they were the kind of rocks where we would normally think of pulling up and walking over to, to have a better look. Pretty sure we won’t be doing that here.
Polar bears have attacked locals in recent years right in town. They have a polar bear alert patrol that tries to keep them out of town and a 10pm curfew to keep people safe. If one seems to be coming into town or causing problems they will dart gun it and put it in a holding pen until the ice comes back in and they can put it back out on the ice. If the holding pen fills up they will relocate it by helicopter.  One of the staff at the park said she was walking to work at 8.30 this morning and heard the helicopter and flare guns going off which made her a bit worried about  walking to work!

Later in the afternoon we went for another slow drive along the coast. We pulled up to just scan around for a bit and look at the scenery.  Next thing I hear Ron saying “Do polar bears stand up on their back legs?” All that flashed through my head in a few seconds was “Really Ron?? Isn’t that the pose they always have in museums?” as I turned around to see a mama polar bear up on her hind legs looking over at us with a gorgeous cub next to her. We will still quite a distance so we just sat quietly ( in the car of course) and watched her with the binoculars.  She seemed to be able to hear us so we shut everything down and sat quietly. Watched her for ages. She and her cub seemed to be sniffing around the grassy edge of the beach looking for something. They ambled around amongst the grass and wildflowers while we watched. It was tempting to try and move closer but we knew that was the wrong thing to do. But instead she slowly moved closer to us until she was about 60 metres away from us with her cub. Then she went over the slight rise towards the beach and disappeared. Ron and I just looked at each other – what do we do now? Do we go? We shouldn’t drive forward as we might startle or disturb her. But should we wait and see if she pops up? Ron and I had the same thoughts at the same time – imagining the dialogue going on…. “So son, this is Human hunting 101. You pretend to not notice them, you amble past them and go behind the rise. Just when they think you’ve gone you come charging over the rise and peel them out of the car like a tin of sardines.”  Man there is such a thing as too much imagination…

Ron then thought to stand up and put his head out of the window to look over the rise – that’s when we saw that they had both got in the water and were swimming.  That was amazing to watch – moved the car closer and watched them seemingly stalk some seabirds and then swim for miles and miles until we couldn’t even see them with the binoculars anymore.  Asking the parks staff later they said sometimes they will swim around the town out at sea to give it a wide berth or sometimes if they are hungry they will try to swim out to the ice early even though it could be hundreds of kilometres away.  Another sign of  ‘the times’ with bears coming to land much earlier in the summer giving them less time to fatten up for breeding and fasting season.  Long time residents and researchers say it has really changed fast in the last couple of years.

Back to the BnB  – well it can barely be called that. In fact it barely rates as hostel. It’s a ‘new’ offering in Churchill and was one of the few places not booked that was a reasonable price AND had a kitchen to use ( self catering in a place like this saves a LOT!).  Took a punt as was too new for any reviews. Well all I can say is the poor guy had no clue and should be thanking the Lord that we were his first ‘guests’.  He was the sweetest nicest young guy from China who had only moved here a few months ago to make a go of it with his wife. We felt sorry for him as it became clear that he wasn’t ready for the tourist season, still had a lot of work to do on the place as well as his full time job and his wife had gone to Winnipeg leaving him with the first tourists. AND he had NO idea what people expect in a BnB. We decided we’d help him and give him some pointers and advice.  If he gives us a discount because nothing promised was there then that’d be great – if he doesn’t – well that’s on his conscience. Like I said he was lucky – because anyone else would have given him a blistering, scathing review and his BnB would be finished before it started… Lesson learned is to wait until a place has at least a couple of reviews first.  Having said that it was still great to be able to have a kitchen to cook a healthy cheap meal in – even if it was a bit undersupplied and dirty..

The ‘Eskimo Museum’ in town is definitely worth checking out. It is really well done and has some fantastic Indigenous artifacts and history and general natural history info.  I didn’t realise that the world’s largest trilobite fossil (didn’t even know they got so big!) was found here.  If you are into books there is a fantastic collection of interesting books about the region and it’s history and peoples. If it wasn’t for weight restrictions I would have got a few!

I had a chance to talk to some of the locals about their views on keeping doctors in the health system. Through this it also came out that Churchill is going through some tough times. Despite the tourism the place is suffering. The loss of their train through damage to the tracks last year really hit them. It is the main transport in so now everything has to be airfreighted in hitting them with huge price increases.  The plan for another company to buy the tracks and repair them has fallen through and I think it’s left the town despondent. Add to this the fact that their hospital has been taken over by Winnipeg and they have significantly downgraded the services available here with more and more people having to go to the capital. The locals are really feeling it. The latest thing is the federal government wants to bring in laws to not allow vessels within 100m of beluga whales. As the locals say that means closing their businesses because the belugas are so friendly as soon as they put a boat in they are there so that would not be possible.

Tues 24 July

Cruised around some more checking out the lovely wildlife – lots of birds – no bears today. Ran into a guy feeding his Canadian sled dogs whom Ron recognized from a documentary. Bit of an old character who is trying to fundraise to save his breed of sled dogs because the increased freight has quadrupled the cost of his dog food. When Ron told him what I was doing he was keen to give his advice as a local on how to retain remote doctors… “Don’t send F…king single people here and rotate them around so they get time off.” Well thanks dude I think you just summarized my report??

Checked out the northern studies centre where researchers come and do all kinds of research on climate change, polar bears, Belugas etc.  They also have a board for polar bear sightings to be recorded and looking at that we realised we had been very fortunate to see the bears we did!

After enjoying the reprieve from the mozzies and bugs we were disappointed to find that they were there with a vengeance at the twin lakes we drove to. It seems it was just the cold wind that was blowing them away.

Several times we stopped by the river mouth to have a look and each time we could see pods and pods of pristine white beluga whales. Apparently when they come in the fresh water to breed they also moult turning from a dull grey to a shiny white. We also came across a gorgeous ringed seal sitting on a rock who was doing some kind of seal yoga on the rock.

Later in the evening we headed down the road to the lake again and Ron walked down along the weir to have a quick flick in the lake. His reasoning was that the bears would not go in so far. I wasn’t so sure but it was pretty clear anyway.  Ron said he looked up at one point and saw a wet patch on the rock in front of him – a splodge surrounded by toe prints – a bear print??? All he could think was ‘it is still wet – is there a bear right here?” before realising his imagination had turned a water birds splashes into a bear print!

At the same spot we saw a mink run across the road and drop a dead baby goose on its way. I saw the mink run into the bush. I thought if I throw the bird  near the edge I’ll see the mink but I got my camera and came back and the dead bird was gone – so quick!

Before going to bed one night we heard a dog start barking – could it be a bear? We looked out and saw the owner bring the dog in – fair enough – in Churchill when your dog barks – bring it in!