Churchill Arrival

This morning, we flew to Churchill on an “upgraded” plane – which meant one without propellers (yea!) and landed on a snowy runway around 11:30. We briefly toured Churchill, which is essentially five blocks on one street with a handful of hotels and shops, one local hardware store, and one local general store. There is also a community center with a health clinic and a hockey rink. We ate lunch at Gypsy’s, which is a diner restaurant and then headed out to start seeing the sights.
The lighting was lovely and the low afternoon sun creates fantastic shadows off the snow. The blue sky and high clouds created a beautiful background for the snowy landscapes punctuated by the granite rocks. We started at a lookout point near the Hudson Bay with the local inshook. The inshook are stone shapes used by natives as signposts, direction markers, and cache places for meat and supplies. The Hudson Bay is still unfrozen at this point. However, when the pack ice sets in, the polar bears will cross this expanse of water on the ice and head north to hunt seals. The ice on the shore reflected the light and ranged from clear shapes like glass to more opaque and milky colored. Then, we went to Cape Merry, which is a national park. We caught a glimpse of a sleeping red fox, curled in a fuzzy ball between the rocks. In the snow, there were polar bear tracks, which are easily as big as human footprints. We saw some of the buildings left from Jockville, which was the housing for the people who built the grain shipping building in the 1920s. At the tip of the cape, between the Hudson Bay and the Churchill River, we went to the remains of Prince of Wales Fort, one of the original strongholds of the Hudson Bay Company. Finally, we headed back to our hotel, called the Seaport Inn. The hotel is small and the rooms are small but comfortable. By 4:30, the sun had set and it was dark.

Just in case you are wondering it is COLD here. After being outside for a few minutes, my fingers were feeling stiff and numb. We have two guides, Eric from Natural Habitat Tours, and Paul, our local guide. They are extremely careful about how far we wander and walk around. Paul checks for polar bears at every stop armed with a shotgun before we are allowed out. Clearly encountering a polar bear can be dangerous.
Tonight, we are eating dinner here at the Seaport Inn and then have a lecture on the wildlife. Tomorrow, we head out in the tundra vehicle for a full day trying to see the polar bears. Keep your fingers crossed!

Today’s trivia: Of the 65 men sent to build Fort Prince of Wales, they were woefully underprepared for the winter and only 3 survived. Amazingly, in the spring, those three boarded their ship and sailed all the way back to Europe.

Photos:
Polar Bear Tracks (no actual bears seen today!)
Those signs are not just for tourist to take photos of...they are very serious.
Ice