CHURCHILL - POLAR BEAR CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
Churchill: my kinda frontier town!  Reminds me of the wacky setting of the old TV show Northern Exposure.  Sort of a human petri dish...you gotta be fundamentally different to be here permanently.  Which lends a certain air to the streets...edgy, remote, wild, some ennui, and a little danger, certainly, as Polar bears roam the town day and night, as well as the occasional wolf.  And fully dependent on the train and airplanes for most of the necessities of life, such as fresh fruits and vegetables.

Chock full o' quirky personalities like Brian, the fully crazed, yet almost loveable sled dog guy;  as our tour guide Phil said, "a perfect example of the North!"  And the peripatetic tour guides themselves, incessantly shuttling in and out...waiting until all of us, their charges, are safely checked in at night, to party with their peers while we soundly sleep...  And the wonderful Portuguese proprietors (from Montreal) of Gypsy’s, our favorite restaurant, serving up wonderful fare...  And no other physical link to the outside world except an occasional arctic supply ship...  Ah, yes...my kind of town...

By virtue of its location at the juncture between the boreal forest to the south, the Arctic tundra to the north, and Hudson Bay to the east and therefore smack in the middle of polar bear migration routes, Churchill has become ground zero for polar bear sightseeing tours.  In fact, if you have seen any of the several popular TV documentaries about the subject, Churchill is where they were filmed.

Originally a Hudson Bay Co. fur trading post, Churchill later became Canada’s only Arctic seaport, with a railway linking the town to the wheat fields of Manitoba in 1929. After years of on-and-off use, the Port is now enjoying a resurgence with the recent trend of year-round ice-free waters; while I was there, a Russian freighter was offloading fertilizer.

Today, although the town sees over 10,000 eco-tourists per year, infrastructure is barely adequate, and life is still fragile. Fringe/frontier types trying to coexist with modern (eco)tourism makes for a very interesting place, indeed.  In fact, during migration months, the town is overrun with visitors;  when we were there (mid-October) the lodging establishments were full, with lotsa Brits and French people, and some languages I couldn’t recognize...one of our group even overheard caught Hebrew...ach!

On the plane from Winnipeg (49.9°N) to Churchill (58.8°N), I see no white on the ground. None at all, just shades of brown.

On arrival in Churchill, it’s ridiculously warm. Hmmm...no snow...no ice...no bears. Well, not none, exactly, but precious few. Turns out that the weather was unseasonably warm, and the bears hadn’t really awakened from their summer slumbers yet, and so were not exactly congregating at the shore.  And of course, I'm thinking "...global warming could open this port for good...is it time to buy real estate here?"

Churchill, Manitoba...no snow...no ice...

POLAR BEARS
Unlike other bears, Polar Bears are extremely active in winter, feeding on seals on the sea ice 24/7. As the sea ice breaks up in late spring, the bears make their way to the nearest shore, where they semi-hibernate all summer, waiting for the sea ice to re-form in the Fall so they can return to the hunt.

Tundra Lodge (from the helo)

INUKSUIT
Our group of ten was small enough to grow cordial but large enough to have vans and tundra buggies to ourselves.  Right after landing, we drove through the town and to the beach for a look at a large inuksuk on the town beach. 

Inuksuit (plural of inuksuk) are stone markers that act in the place of human beings, for example, by communicating knowledge essential for survival to an Arctic traveler:  they can show direction, tell about a good hunting or fishing area, show where food is stored, indicate a good resting place, or act as a message center.

Inuksuk

Soooo NOT cold...

In the past, most inuksuit were not built in the shape of a human, but wherever you go in Canada today as a tourist, you will see them built like this (called inunnguaq) - I think to better grasp the imagination of the tourists.

TUNDRA BUGGY TOUR
On another day, we were shuttled off to the coastal area south of town for a full-day Tundra Buggy adventure just for our small group.  All-custom contraptions, built from truck and tractor parts on a bus chassis, these behemoths are able to safely traverse tundra and the small ponds and lakes that dot it - albeit at a speed of maybe 15mph!

Our Tundra Buggy day didn't turn up many bears.  The ones we saw by helicopter on the beaches were off-limits to the buggies;  the ones I have good close-up pictures of were either lounging underneath and around the Tundra Lodge, or just lying in the tundra.

SLED DOGS
We also visited a sled dog "farm" where real, pure-blooded sled dogs are kept, raised and trained.  The proprietor, a colorful local character, described for us the attributes of sled dogs:  tough, very work-minded, immune to any and all cold, very social and very hierarchical.  Every pack has its pecking order, with obvious alphas - both male and female.  Unlike the ordinary dogs, the alphas were left unchained, to roam around, guarding the pack.  The tethered dogs would pull at their chains to get close to us, and the alphas - more aloof than the others - would stop by, keeping their distance though, to make sure everything was in order.

Speaking of protection, you might think that the bears themselves would be a real problem for the dogs, but they're not at all:  this bear (photo, below) was sleeping maybe 400 yards away, not concerning the dogs in the least.  Polar Bears will never attack sled dogs - the pack itself  is just too smart, dangerous and capable. 

TUNDRA SIGHTS
Other sights on the tundra included ptarmigan, very conspicuous in their pure white winter plumage against the dark brown landscape.  Also very visible in his winter-whites was this stunning arctic fox, playing with a just-caught lemming or vole or something...

...and a lone moose, sheltering in a small glade in the boreal forest at the edge of the tundra...

...and the remains of a rocket test gone bad at the Fort Churchill rocket range.  Near the point of maximum auroral activity, this location was ideal for far-north sounding rocket launches in the 1950s...

...and another predictable result of human habitation:  a dead-airplane-on-the-rocks near town!

INUIT, NUNAVUT and THE RESTUVUT
I suspect that my utter fascination with the North arises out of the respect I have for the Inuit, the indigenous peoples of the area, and the extremes they have to go to and the extreme discipline necessary to survive.

This part of Canada is now called Nunavut, which means 'our land' in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit, and has supported a continuous population for approximately 4000 years.  In 1999 the 30,000 Inuit of Arctic Canada were awarded Territory status to 750,000 square miles - a region the size of Western Europe, making this the most sparsely populated district in the world.  A popular joke around Canada is that the other provinces in Canada should be renamed "The Restuvut."

Anyway, one of the real highlights of the trip for me was a short presentation given by an Inuit couple from Rankin Inlet, a small village up the coast.  In a caribou-hide tipi set up in the yard of our motel, they shared with us for about an hour aspects of their changing lives.  Adult Inuit have an interesting seat in the theater of the changing world:  they are old enough to remember the "old ways" of doing things before electricity and petroleum and all the conveniences those two energy sources bring, yet they are fully adapted to the modern life - unlike either their parents or their children.

With subtle yet broad and generous humor and wry observations about their past and present, they entertained us with stories, implements and songs and dances from the old days.

I love (any) juxtaposition, so after the talk when Peter ditched his traditional clothing for modern synthetic outerwear, I smiled.  When we saw them both in the airport the next day, waiting for their flight home, I appreciated even more fully what changes they have seen and let insinuate into their lives.

MUSEUM
I love museums, especially the kind they have here:  smallish and informal but well-provisioned and locally staffed.  When our group visited, we were almost alone, and we got a personal tour by the staff person there.

In keeping with my principled practice of buying locally-crafted/indigenous artifacts or objects rather than cheap souvenirs, I sized up the nice selection of Inuit soapstone carvings in the Museum's shop.  To no one's surprise, I ended up with the most distinctive (and expensive - $550) one I could find - of a polar bear cub whimsically cavorting on the shoulders of its Mom.

This happy pair now live on one of my friendliest bookshelves, in my den, and whenever my gaze meets theirs my heart smiles, both for the bears themselves, and also for the Inuit carver who created them and who was paid a fair price for his art by a visitor who carried home a small reminder of this harsh yet preternaturally brilliant land.  My feelings for all involved are idealistic, perhaps, and certainly romanticized a bit, but all involved in this bargain are better off for them.

AND SO...?
So what is to make of this beautiful predator, so perfectly adapted to - so unified with - its ferociously harsh and exclusive milieu?  Although I, too, am alarmed by the bodings of doom that now pervade the e-sphere, an old, wizened knowledge deep within me asserts that Nature and all its constituents will adapt again, if  and when necessary, as it and they have countless times over hundred of millions of years. 

Our folly as Humans is to see Nature and its (re)incarnations as a single stop-action frame...although we know that time and everything in it is a flow;  to bleed emotions so singular and unique to us as a species...of which the World neither knows nor cares;  to wish for Humanly happy outcomes to events and circumstances that dwarf us and all of our achievements and abilities and knowledge. 

IF the environment does, indeed, grow warmer, it certainly will not be the first time, and very probably not the last;  certain species, as well as certain individuals of many species, will almost certainly falter and fail.  But exercising my very Human proclivity to speculate, I choose to believe in Nature, and that this kingpin of predators will find ways to survive.

Sure, we were disappointed by the relative lack of Ursus Maritimus caused by the very unseasonably warm temperatures, but for many of us it was the trip of a lifetime.  Personally, I loved every minute of my Polar Bear peek-a-boo tour...and I’d do it again…