Snow Walker...ever heard of that movie? Just the Snow Walker part is the title of the movie that was filmed just outside Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, polar bear capital of the world. I saw the little hut that was used in the movie so now this movie is on my 'have to see' list. It seems to fit this whole trip, snow walkers we became! Churchill was in the midst of one of the earliest snowstorms and we flew back to Winnipeg in their first big storm of the year too! I arrived to an icy, windy mess and was told that the snow would be very deep this morning. And it is! It is beautiful here, I'm getting used to a setting filled with the frigid white stuff and believe I wouldn't be too happy spending the winter in one of these places, but I know I will be back! What a polar bear dream this has all been!
When I try to write, my mind fills with stories of my adventures, stories of the people I've met and of images of the most incredible animal on earth (in my opinion) roaming free on the tundra. It all truly brings tears to my eyes when I think of it. Such a moving three days, that felt like it could have been 3 weeks or 3 months will all that I saw and did! And still it didn't seem long enough. This was truly the ultimate adventure!!
The weather was perfect for polar bears and they were much more active than they had been in the warmer weather. They are preparing to head out over the ice to once again eat. The bears go through the summer with little food and are hungry this time of year. The polar rover, the large tundra vehicle we were on for the 2nd day of viewing was a very interesting mode of transportation. It is a very large machine with a warm comfy interior. The windows go down for perfect polar bear viewing and pictures, and there is a deck on the back that is open and offers a great viewing platform. We were unbelievably lucky because a mother bear and her 2 cubs walked right down the tracks the rover had made in the snow and stood up to see us in the deck, putting them level with the bottom of the platform. Unfortunately, very unfortunately, I was not in the front and not able to get good pictures of this amazing happening. Hopefully some of the people who refused to move from their front spots are going to email me some of the incredible pictures they got, but it is an experience that makes me sad to have missed. I do wish the driver would have encouraged people to take turns at the amazing sight, but they didn't, so I missed seeing it all first hand. The floor of the platform is very thick grating and one bear, perhaps the mother was standing up sniffing that and I can say that her nose was about 2 inches from my foot, with the metal grate the only thing between us. That was a nice experience, but the pictures are not good at all. I got about a minute to see a cub close and get a picture before they all turned around and walked away, their curiousity leading them to some other unknown spot. Eventually we could see them in the distance, lie down and settle in for a nice nap from all the excitement. It was an amazing experience, being that close to those amazing creatures! Later we saw a great white male saunter up to the same platform, and once again I was not in the front so have no first hand pictures of his visit, standing on his back paws to get close to the people. We are constantly warned to not have anything, a scarf, camera, arm, hat, etc, over the side because in a flash a paw could come up and tear it away. The power of these majestic animals does not go unappreciated. Again, some of my tour friends got some amazing pictures, but I didn't. We saw many bears, over 20 at least in various activites, mostly sleeping.
Another highlight of the day was seeing my friend Kevin, from the Antarctica cruise. He is one of the drivers of a tundra buggy, the vehicle used by another company. My driver knew him and we were able to meet up with him in the tundra, so our only hello and conversation was from the windows of our vehicles, but he was very kind and glad I had made it to the arctic to see the bears. He understands my passion for polar bears because he shares that with me. We talked on the phone a little before I left town and it was nice to connect with someone from my past. I loved the fact that I was in the Arctic tundra visiting with someone I had met in the Antarctic. Small world?
There was a darling young couple on our tour and in chatting with them I found out they worked at the lodge where we stayed and have been traveling around the world working and seeing the amazing sights. If I were younger, I would do the same thing! The girl is from Scotland, went to New Zealand and met the young man and they have been doing this together for quite some time. They go out on the tundra regularly and said that this was the best trip of the year. We were lucky to have seen what we did. Usually the bears are sleeping. So the day of polar bear viewing was a complete success! It also made us all realize how nice the day before really was, even though we only saw one up close, we were really close to it and we all got to see him well and he did put on quite a show. So both days were amazing and I am sure that I will manage to go back out to the Churchill tundra again and witness the amazing nature of the polar bear, perhaps next year.
When I returned from the adventure I was exhausted and had dinner at the lodge and went to bed, one of the first times I was too exhausted to write in my blog. I forgot to mention that the second night there I had a delicious dinner of musk ox. I was surprised at how delicious it was! The next night I tried the caribou, expecting the same delicious dinner, and I didn't like that at all. I couldn't eat it and was disappointed it wasn't the delightful surprise that the musk ox was, but at least I tried it!
I made a friend who was great to be with because when I had an idea of what I would like to do, she always wanted to do it too. We decided to look into spending an extra day on the tundra, but as much as I would have loved it, I was afraid if any little thing went wrong I would have missed my plane back to Winnipeg that night, and if anyone remembers the missed plane in Lisbon story, they will understand that it was a chance I couldn't take again! So we stuck with our tour group and went on the morning cultural tour. It had some interesting parts, playing with the Canadian Eskimo puppies was one of them. The other was visiting the polar bear jail. It was fascinating to see what they have developed! I expected it to be an outdoor area with some cages, similar to a zoo, but it is a large metal building with no windows.
Well, time to get ready for the airport now, so more on the ultimate adventure another time! Stay warm!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment