Polar Paradise - Trip 3 - Day 1

Greetings from Churchill, the Polar Bear Capital of the World! Yes, it is my 3rd trip here, but I am quite sure I will never tire of watching these magnificent creatures in the wild! Such beauty and if you know me, you know it is quite challenging not to just get out of the vehicle and give them a huge hug!! So warm and cuddly! But I will have to settle for my dear Bram as huggable, these creatures are to be admired from a distance.

Distance, however, is relative. Yesterday was my first experience to see the bears up close and personal. Sitting in an SUV less than 6 feet from them at times, was thrilling. Yes, I am truly like a kid at Disneyland here. No words for the thrill of being an observer as my favorite animals conduct life in the wild. Well, okay there were other vehicles around too, so it wasn't a solitary experience, although I believe that each person there was having their own solitary experience with the bears. Each of us is touched in a different way as we watch wildlife in nature. However at this site it was evident that humans have impacted life here, even if just a bit. There was Digger, the young bear who has been working on that hole he is digging for at least 3 days! There must be some pretty good grain or leftovers down there! And then there was Druggy, (my name for him) who follows the cars around sniffing the fumes and eventually stands up at the cars' sides to get up close and personal. Easy to believe he is getting his own kind of 'high' from the gas. A frightening sight actually. Then there was the bear who was totally occupied with a green tarp that had evidently flown off the back of a truck, he was like a dog with a new toy. The other bears wandered and rested. It was a beautiful day, new snow and sunny blue skies.

The manager of my motel took me out and she knows how to be safe. For instance you can't have the window open if you aren't looking directly out because a bear could come out of nowhere and have his paw in the window. They move quite quickly when they want to. This
was an amazing new experience for me. I've always been in the large tundra roving vehicles and to be in a regular vehicle, at times only 6 feet from a bear, was thrilling! When the bear stood up on the van in front of us, the girl I was with explained how dangerous that was, with
strength that can dig through feet of ice, they could harm a person with no effort and then they would be put down as agressive and
dangerous. So when people are irresponsibly interacting with the bears, they could be setting that bear's fate, endangering the bears' lives. This trip I am more like a local and loving it!

After my hour at the 'dump' we came back to town and I wandered. It was a quiet day in Churchill and as everyone here said, truly beautiful!
Sun and snow. I decided to take a walk down the main street and have lunch at Gypsy's. It is a bit far from my motel but I decided it was a
good day to walk. The upcoming days might not be so beautiful for a walk and I'll be eating closer to the motel.

A bit of history: I spent christmas 2007 on the ship, Marco Polo, cruising from Buenos Aires to Antarctica and then to Ushuaia. I met my British friends, Peter and Terry, there for the adventure. That is where I met my other British friends, Diana and Alec. On that trip there were two other special people who I met and got to know. One was Nestor Gude, a well known gaucho performer whose show we had seen one night in Buenos Aires and he appeared on our ship to be the entertainer. The other special person was Kevin, called the polar bear man from Churchill. Well by then I'd seen many documentaries of the town and bears, and knew that the people involved with snow and Klondike at the Denver zoo had been there. I talked to Kevin and he assured me that a trip to Churchill was safe. People here knew how to live with the bears and the weather. Not long before the polar bear season I decided to look into the polar bear trips and ended up being very brave and headed to Hudson bay to see my favorite animals. It was a terrifying trip, one that took me to my limit, and I survived. I did see Kevin here, by chance somewhat, and a man I had met in Antarctica was saying hello in the subarctic tundra! Life can be so interesting! On my 2nd visit I saw him as we were boarding our tundra vehicle. And this trip I called him ahead of time and had a lovely chat with his wife and will be having dinner with them. I'm so looking forward to an evening of polar bear stories from the expert! Kevin happens to be the driver for many of the celebrities who visit. Right now there is a member of 'black eyed peas' in town with his girlfriend and Ryan Secrest is also here. I wouldnt know them if i saw them. And then there is Mitzi...

The flight here was perfect, plenty of room on the plane and the flight attendant has time to visit. He was telling me about the mining exploration going on in Canada now. I had no idea that they are finding gold and diamonds north of here. So much to learn about the world!

Well, back to lunch at Gypsy's...I was enjoying the hot roast beef sandwich, watching the people come in and out. I went up to order on of the beautiful desserts and there was a lady in front of me with a little girl and the owner, Helen, called her sandy. When the lady had walked away I asked if thar was by any chance sandy, kevins wife and she said it was. So the lady I'd talked to on the phone from Colorado ended up having lunch at a table right next to me! Yes, Churchill is a small town, but it is still amazing that we would happen to be at the same place at the exact same time at tables next to each other! So I went and introduced myself and we became fast friends! What fun to have a friend in Churchill! We visited for a long time and then walked together towards her house and my hotel. She later made plans to pick me up for a morning trip to see the bears.

After a short nap, I chatted with some people in the commons room of my motel. We were sharing polar bear pictures and I found out that when I'd thought I'd gotten videos of a bear rolling on the ground, I'd not pushed the right button and there were no videos at all. The three people helped me figure out how to do that so now I am ready. One person was a young man doing some surveying for the new dump. He was working with a gunman that was to protect them from the bears. There was another couple who came by train, pretty much on their own, from Winnipeg. The bears are truly something to see for so many people.

I invited the young girls who manage this motel to join me for dinner and they had a friend fly in from Winnipeg, so we went for a great dinner at the lazy bear lodge, where I used to stay. What an enjoyable evening with local people, I learned a lot about Canadian culture.

A very special first day in churchill, Manitoba!

A bit of my history...In December 2007 I was in A