RVing With a Purpose

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Wednesday morning (November 16th) we awoke in Churchill to a heavy overnight snow.  It was cold and windy.  Very cold and very windy.  When we met Barry and Donna in the lobby for breakfast we met some local construction workers who were working on our hotel roof.  We don’t know how they were up on that roof in the extreme temperatures.  When Max said something to one of the men he said, “It’s ok.  We have gloves.”  When we looked up on the tin roof when we returned from breakfast – he didn’t have any gloves on his hands.  The people of Churchill are certainly hardier than the two of us.

The schedule for our last day was busy.  We toured a little more of the town, first visiting Churchill Rocket Research Range.  While no longer active this was the location from which rockets were launched to study the upper atmosphere off and on from 1954 to 1985, including studies of the aurora. It is now a National Historic Site of Canada.

We also visited the Itsanitaq Museum, a museum dedicated to the Inuit culture.  It was very well done and very informative on the people, animals, region and culture. It’s in a small space but is packed with displays and information.  We weren’t expecting to see wildlife this day but saw another fox perched on a large pile of snow.  Next we went to the Parks Canada Visitor’s Center where there were other great displays.  We were also very glad to find two geocaches located at the Visitor’s center.  The multicache was buried in the snow outside the visitor’s center.  The ranger offered us a snow shovel and then went outside with us and dug it out for us.  He was so excited we were looking for the cache because he had hidden it.  We had a good conversation with the young ranger.  We asked him about working in such a remote and isolated place.  He had only been assigned to Churchill a few months but said it was his dream location.  He was so excited to be there. 

Our big event for the way was dog sledding.  We visited the kennels, got to pet the dogs and then go sledding – so much fun and a very different experience sledding out through the woods.  Very different from the tundra and ice. 

We had lunch and time for a little souvenir shopping and then were supposed to head to the airport for our flight back to Winnipeg.  However, the weather took over and changed our plans.  It began snowing very hard during lunch.  Our original flight was cancelled and we had a later charter flight which meant we remained in Churchill for supper.  The snow was very heavy when we finally arrived at the airport.  It took a long time to deice the plane and then we headed to Winnipeg.  It probably wasn’t a blizzard but it sure was to these Alabama natives.  It was still snowing when we landed in Winnipeg a few hours later.  We turned in all our -40° gear, got a good night’s sleep and returned to Birmingham on Thursday.  The polar bear photography tour was a wonderful, exciting, beautiful experience.  A once in a lifetime adventure that we feel so blessed to have been able to experience. 

Friday, December 2, 2022

The continuing saga of our experiences on the tundra north of Churchill, Manitoba.  In case you are interested, today, 12/2/2022, at 7:30pm EST, it is -19 degrees with a wind chill of -39 in Churchill.  Weather Bug cautions that it is “very cold”.  So glad we had the opportunity to visit this almost magical place, but very, very glad we do not live there.

Now back to our story of this cold far north area.  We forgot to mention in our last post, for Sunday, that the northern lights were out again late Sunday night.  The sky was not as bright as Saturday and there was some cloud cover but you could definitely see the lights. We were so blessed to see them both nights because the rest of our nights we had lots of clouds.

Monday and Tuesday began as Sunday with another great breakfast and then a full day on the tundra.  After the spectacular viewing day Sunday, we really didn’t know what to expect.  The next two days, we did have time to get to know our fellow travelers better.  As we quit totally concentrating on wildlife, we began to appreciate all the different cultures and backgrounds in our buggy – people from Canada, USA, Germany, Holland, and Japan and maybe elsewhere.  We also learned more about the tundra, the environmental concerns with the melting of the polar ice, and we noticed more of the plant life in the tundra, and the smaller things we had missed on Sunday.  We met Tundra Buggy One while we were roaming the tundra Monday and Tuesday.  It is the research vehicle our tour company (Frontiers North Adventures) provides to the Polar Bear Institute for their research.  Buggy 1 is equipped with some great camera gear and web cams anyone can watch.  The look and feel of our surroundings became more real as we spent more time there and began to take more in than just the wildlife.  Not that we were not still looking for and photographing wildlife both days.  But we began to notice other things too.  We saw more bears, fox, ptarmigan, and seals, but the big thrill for the day Monday was spotting an arctic hare – a rare find.  Our guide has only photographed one arctic hare in all his time on the tundra.  The hare is so beautiful and so very fast.  Most of the time all you get is pictures from behind as they run away.  They are very difficult to spot because they blend in perfectly with the snow, as do the arctic fox and ptarmigan.  Until they move, they go unnoticed even when they are right in view.   We had a gorgeous sunset Monday and then a very peaceful evening drive back to the lodge for another amazing dinner – our last dinner at the lodge.  Tuesday was another wonderful sunset but instead of heading to the lodge we went back to the buggy dock for our bus ride back to Churchill and our own hotel room and bathroom.  The lodge was actually very nice but it’s been a long time since we slept in bunk beds like at church camp and shared 3 bath rooms, 2 with showers, for 20 people.  We really enjoyed our long hot showers back in Churchill. Check back in for our final day of this adventure.  There was lots of fun on the final day.

Friday, November 25, 2022

Sunday, November 13th was our first full day on the tundra.  The schedule for each day on the tundra was basically the same.  Coffee, hot tea and snacks available in the lounge beginning about 6:00AM, breakfast at 7:00 and depart the lodge on our tundra buggy at 8:00, in search of bears, other wildlife and general adventure.  Breakfast was always a hearty meal to get the day started.  Today we had French toast, bacon and sausage and eggs along with a great bowl of fruit and you could have oatmeal, cereal, etc. as well.  During breakfast we learned most people really didn’t sleep a lot last night because of the aurora and just the general excitement of being on the tundra.  To add to the excitement, we saw really big bear tracks out our windows this morning.  We both woke up several times during the night and looked out our little window but never saw a bear walking by.  We had great hopes for the day.  First things first, after breakfast and loading everyone into the buggy, Mark, our great driver, drove over to the kitchen and transferred our lunch into the rear of the buggy.  We were fed way too much excellent food on this adventure!  It was about a twenty minute buggy ride with everyone looking out the window searching for our first wildlife sighting.  Mark brought the buggy to a stop and cut off the engine and pointed out the front window.  Finally, we all spotted the big sleeping bear.  FUN FACT.  Just for the record, polar bears are not bright white.  Their coat actually has no white pigment. In fact, a polar bear’s skin is black and its hairs are hollow.  Their color is determined by the lighting and their surroundings. When light strikes the polar bear fur part of the light is absorbed and the rest is scattered away.  Normally, polar bears appear white because the fur is scattering the sunlight which is also white.  White is a good color because its the best camouflage on the snowy tundra.  But on very cloudy days, the bears may appear grey or a little yellow due to oil from some of the prey they have recently eaten or orange at sunset.

Now back to our bear.  It was large and a little yellowish in color and sleeping.  We watched it for quite a while.  Occasionally it would lift it’s head a little and we were hopeful it would get up but no, it always just put it’s head back down and slept some more.  After a while we had all taken all the pictures we really wanted of this sleeping bear.  Our guide had given us some history of the area and some of the problems the polar bears are facing due to less polar ice and honestly, we were all getting a little bored.  That is when our driver told us some upsetting news.  Yesterday, this sleeping bear was the only bear that yesterday’s tour group saw except for some tiny spots of distant bears out on the ice.  The ice had begun freezing and the bears were moving out to catch seals.  He said that this bear would eventually wake up and move but …. When?? He couldn’t promise us that we would see anything else today.  Anne was pretty devastated by this tale and really thought maybe Mark was joking.  The buggy got very quiet.  Anne and Donna just looked at each other not knowing what to say. Mark was very serious and just wanted to be truthful with us.  After several minutes we all began to look out with our cameras and binoculars again. Suddenly Donna said “Don’t look over there look over here.  Over here!  There are two bears walking over here!”  The bears were on the opposite side of the buggy, walking toward the ice.  They were not right next to us but they were close enough to see with the naked eye and good pictures with the zoom on the cameras.  Mark started the buggy and we headed toward the bears, hoping to get closer before they made it to the ice.  We followed those bears for a good while, taking lots of pictures.  As we got closer to them we could see it was three bears.  A little later we saw three more bears.  The two smaller ones were sparring – so amazing to get to see in the wild.  They were slowly making their way toward the ice and we followed as long as we could.  Sometime in the middle of all this we started seeing some smaller animals.  Later in the day we saw three amazing little arctic foxes.  The arctic fox is a much smaller fox – solid white – blends in completely with the snow.  We saw a silver fox – beautiful.  We watched this one while he jumped up, dove down in the snow (almost cartoon like), dug around and eventually caught the prey, a small lemming (rodent), we think.  We also saw numerous Willow Ptarmigan throughout the day.  They were in full white splendor.  This is the state bird for Alaska and we saw many on our Alaska trip in 2014.  In May we saw them in white but later in the summer got to see their “summer outfit” with lots of brown feathers.  The topper on the cake this day was seeing a Snowy Owl!  We never thought we would get to see this beautiful owl.  We were told they had all migrated south by now but we rounded a curve and saw something different on top of a large bolder we had passed earlier.  Anne didn’t know what it was at first but Mark sure did and quickly positioned the buggy so we could get some pictures.  What an absolutely amazingly wonderful day!! We saw numerous polar bears and all the other critters mentioned.  Mark and our guide Ward were so surprised.  Ward said he had only led one other adventure where so much wildlife was spotted in a single day.  Donna was our super spotter.  By the end of our trip Mark was wanting to hire her to spot for him.  We still have two more days on the tundra so check back for more of our amazing subarctic trip.

November 21, 2022

Saturday morning, November 12, we were again up early with baggage downstairs at 6:00 and breakfast at 6:15AM.  With that out of the way we boarded a bus for transit to the far side of the airport to board a charter flight to Churchill.  It was again windy and cold! Winnipeg 18 degrees with feels like of 12 and on arrival to Churchill, minus 11 degrees with feels like of minus 26 degrees!  We now REALLY understood the requirement of gear rated at minus 40 degrees and were thankful it was available to rent in Winnipeg since you can’t easily purchase that type gear (coats, pants or bib overalls and boots) in Alabama.  We, especially Anne, did not like the gear.  It was heavy, bulky, and the smallest size available was too big.  The boots required two pairs of heavy socks to stay on her feet but….she stayed toasty warm in the coldest of conditions (even if she did feel like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.)

After landing in Churchill, we boarded a bus to tour the little town of 800 people.  First stop was at the Polar Bear Jail.  Nestled on the shore of the Hudson Bay, Churchill sits on the annual migration path of the world’s largest land predator – the polar bear.  Churchill also hosts beluga whales, wolves, moose, migratory birds, snowy owls, arctic, red, and silver foxes, arctic hare, other amazing creatures at different times of the year. It is the gathering area for the polar bears as they await the freezing of the Hudson Bay.  Once the bay freezes hard enough to support the weight of the bears (700-1500 pounds for mature male), they go far out on the ice to feed on seals. Sometimes the bears wonder thru the town while waiting on the freeze and become a danger to the residents.  If that occurs the Polar Bear Warning System jumps into action, an outdoor alarm sounds signaling everyone that a bear is close by and to go inside, the naturalists respond to fire noise makers to hopefully encourage the bears to leave town and head back to the tundra. Sometimes a helicopter will sweep down and try to herd the bear out of town but sometimes the bears just want to say in town and then they are captured, tagged as a troublemaker and relocated.  Until the relocation, they stay in the polar bear jail.  We also saw some of the huge, humane traps that are sometimes used in the relocation process.  Living where bears wonder thru town would require some adjustment for us but seems second nature to the locals.  We learned that for the most part doors are not locked because there are times your neighbor may need to duck in your house to escape the bears.  You can fly to Churchill or take the train.  No roads in or out.  So again – no locks.  People don’t lock the cars because someone may need to jump in for protection.  Also, there is no car theft in Churchill.  If a car is “borrowed” the most someone would be charged with is joy riding.  So…what’s a teenager to do when they need to pass their drivers test and one of the requirements is to demonstrate knowledge of what to do at a four way stop?  As we were entering town from the airport there was a four way stop.  No need for it at that intersection, but it was placed there so the young people of Churchill could pass the provincial driving test. It’s the only 4 way stop in Churchill.  As we drove around town we viewed a number of murals painted on walls of various buildings.  The murals are part of the SeaWalls Churchill project which was created to educate and inspire the community to protect the oceans.  It serves as a reminder to this small town on the edge of the Arctic of their value and worthiness in this world.  “Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to project man.” – Stewart Udall.  We spent time after lunch roaming main street looking in the various shops and the grocery store – also sells clothes, cold weather gear, snow machines etc.  The prices were crazy high.  Milk is over $9 per gallon and produce is just too expensive and old when it arrives.  We really don’t know how people live in Churchill.  We were told they harvest most of their meat from the forest.  Grow what they can in the short growing season and as one teenager we talked to in a shop told us, “It’s all I’ve ever known.”  We also visited and enjoyed a presentation at Polar Bears International.  PBI is made up of a passionate group of conservationists, scientists, and volunteers working to secure a future for polar bears across the arctic.  Over the course of the week we heard several lectures on the work being done to secure a future for the polar bears and the sea ice they depend upon.  We also had a quick visit to Cape Merry Battery.  By then the wind had increased in speed and the will chill was so cold we couldn’t stay out on the point for long even in all our gear.  We got a quick look and read the handout back in the bus.  While Churchill  is definitely a beautiful place, with amazing wild life, it is also an unforgiving, and harsh environment.

As darkness approached our group of 20 adventurous souls were taken to the Tundra Buggy Docks to board our buggy out to the Tundra Buggy Lodge.  After boarding the buggy, our feet would not touch the ground again for 3 days as we were not allowed to walk on the tundra due to the damage it could cause to the tundra and permafrost (and the presence of hungry polar bears).  We departed the dock and traveled for about 10 minutes into the pitch black darkness.  Our buggy then dropped into a deep mud hole, pulling apart the drive shaft.  There we sat stranded at minus 18 degrees and strong winds making it feel much worse.  This could have been a scary experience, and was a little, but we had another buggy following us so we weren’t alone and had radio contact with the dock.  Very soon the repair buggy arrived and there was another surprise. Men came out of the buggy with guns.  The guys couldn’t be outside their buggy to repair our buggy without other guys covering their backs watching for bears.  Truly a different world from the one where we daily live.  Obviously, everything was okay because we are writing this blog but certainly new experiences for us.

The buggy was repaired in about 20 minutes and then we were back on our way to the Tundra Lodge.  We arrived after about 45 more minutes of very slow travel out onto the tundra.  We were greeted by the staff, given a quick tour of the Lodge and began enjoying appetizers while awaiting dinner.  All the food was wonderful!!

Saturday was a long day and after a wonderful but late dinner (due to our breakdown) we were ready to get some rest. However, there was a scheduled lecture in the lounge buggy.  Just as everyone was gathering, we looked out the window and saw the aurora borealis!  Oh my gosh!! This was one of our biggest bucket list items.  We wanted to see and photograph the aurora while on this trip but had been told it wasn’t likely due to the clouds.  It was beautiful.  So exciting.  Obviously, there was no lecture and everyone was grabbing heavy coats and out on the viewing platforms taking pictures for the next hour or more – no longer tired.

Stay tuned for the next episode when we spend our first full day looking for wildlife on the tundra.  Are all these new experiences and things we are learning keeping us young?  Don’t know, but we sure are having fun.