2018/10 Churchill trip - Winnipeg |
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Winnipeg |
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Dear All,
Just before we left for the family reunion in Waterton I had sent in all the forms for the renewal of my permanent residence card and was a bit surprised to find that the lead time was now over 90 days, a month or so after my card’s expiry. This made booking any international travel in October or November a bit risky, so we looked for a trip inside Canada.
The obvious candidate for us was a trip on the railway to Churchill, Manitoba to see the polar bears. The time matched perfectly as the bears are on land during those months, waiting for the sea water in Hudson Bay to freeze and give them access to their major diet, ringed seals. We couldn’t get there by train however as the line had been cut by a washout last year and the line’s American owners said that fixing it was not cost effective. The line was now back under Canadian ownership and repairs were underway but the line wouldn’t reopen in time for us. There is no road to Churchill so we’d have to fly in.
The trip would not be cheap; the people in the tourism industry have to make all their money in those two months when the bears are easily accessible. In addition, in 2018, all goods, with the exception of barged-in fuel oil, were having to be flown in.
Most of the dozen tours I found lasted a week and were very expensive. A week of bear watching seemed an overkill, but these tours were padded out with dog sledding, helicopter trips, aurora gazing, lodge accommodation, and similar. Although there are plenty of tour companies there are only two or three companies that actually own and operate the tundra buggies. We picked the one with the longest history, Frontiers North, a company that offered a three day Town and Tundra tour, with one day in town and two days on a tundra buggy. I’d have skipped the town day if I could but I assumed it was there to boost the community’s restaurants and gift shops.
By the time we were ready to book, all the prime dates in November had sold out. The number of bears in the area steadily increases as the weather gets colder and then plummets as the ice gets thick enough to support a bear’s weight. In the end, there was only one date for us that didn’t conflict with medical appointments.
Saturday October 20th 
We were leaving Hope on a beautiful morning. We’d had a sunny, dry, and calm spell so the fall colours were at their peak. The reflections from the river were giving the whole house a golden glow. We were leaving all this colour and warmth for Churchill’s black and white and cold, at around freezing point.
We were flying on WestJet from Abbotsford to Winnipeg via Calgary, and then on a charter flight to Churchill. Abbotsford was rather foggy, and as we came through security we saw that the waiting area was jam-packed. Many flights had been cancelled, with incoming aircraft unable to land. We were lucky to be leaving on the first plane that was able to land. It was a Bombardier Q400, a propeller plane, similar to those that fly out of Bellingham.
It was a scenic flight, taking a loop south past the great white volcano of Mount Baker to gain altitude, and then passing over Cultus Lake, Mount Cheam, Chilliwack Lake, and the Skagit Valley before losing me in BC’s thousands of mountains.
We had a scramble in Calgary, off one plane and directly on to the other. Calgary was a warm 18C while Winnipeg was a near freezing 2C. We were booked into the Four Points by Sheraton, an up-market business hotel, just a few minutes’ walk from the airport. We had time for dinner before our meeting that evening with Frontier North. We were tour #64, a number we had to remember.
There were four meetings scheduled at the same time. The other three were for other types of tour, some the luxury week-long type with a dedicated guide and lodge accommodation, and some the one-day type with no nights in Churchill. We had to admire their handling of the 
complexities of getting 130 people and their luggage to the right places. The purpose of our meeting was for them to tell us what to do to make sure our luggage got to and from the right hotel. It was also to give us instructions on how to survive in Churchill and avoid encounters with bears. This sign (in Churchill’s airport) summarizes the rules.
We had to travel to Churchill the next morning in the clothes we’d wear all day, so we’d repacked our suitcase that evening. Some people had rented parkas and boots and gloves from the company but we had gear from our Minnesota days. We also took hiking poles to help keep us upright on the ice.