IAN STALKER
Big bears are translating into big bucks in Churchill, Man. The Hudson-Bay-fronting community has seen its population dwindle from over 8,000 in decades gone by to around 800 today, matching a shrinking economy.
But a sizeable area polar bear population is resulting in a flourishing tourist trade in the remote town and providing something of an economic lifeline to it, with Churchill now hosting around 25,000 visitors a year and visitors spending some $99.8 million in town in 2023. Some tourists are drawn by opportunities to see the Northern Lights and the thousands of beluga whales that gather in the Churchill River estuary in July and August.
But the town has also become somewhat synonymous with polar bears, with those carnivores luring visitors eager to see the world’s largest land predators roaming freely around and sometimes venturing into a community that proudly labels itself the Polar Bear Capital of the World.
Images of polar bears and other northern wildlife are seen throughout Churchill, with wildlife murals adorning buildings, the municipal fire department having a polar bear logo and town post office staff happily obliging tourists who want their passports stamped with a distinctive marker featuring an outline of ursus maritimus and which reads Churchill.
Duane Collins, a tour guide with Frontiers North Adventures, a Winnipeg-based company that sends tourists to Churchill, says the Churchill-area bear viewings provide a remarkable experience.
“This is not a zoo,” he states. “There’s nowhere else in the world where there are this many bears accessible to so many people.”
Frontiers North Adventures is known in part for its Tundra Buggies, massive elevated vehicles with oversized tires and attached outdoor platforms for viewing the bears, with those platforms out of reach of curious bears that frequently approach idle vehicles found on tundra outside of town. The company operates in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area, overseen by the provincial government and known for its abundant fall bear sightings.
“This is not a zoo. There’s nowhere else in the world where there are this many bears accessible to so many people.”
–Duane Collins, a tour guide with Frontiers North Adventures
Photos by Kemi Wells-Conrad
Frontiers North Adventures works with Vancouver-based Fresh Tracks Canada, which bills itself as “the country’s leading premium FIT tour operator, exclusively selling Canada. We work directly with travel advisors to provide personalized trips based on our curated sample itineraries, partnering with iconic brands and local suppliers (like Frontiers North Adventures), to offer your clients authentic Canadian and Indigenous experiences — and support you every step of the way. As your inside source for your Canadian travel requests, our local travel experts will work with you to co-create unique and unforgettable vacations for your clients, with itineraries from our three distinct travel styles,” says the company’s Jen Tesarowski, adding clients can also opt for train vacations in this country as well as tours showcasing the Northern Lights.
October and November are prime polar bear viewing season in Churchill as the carnivores gather near the shore of Hudson Bay, waiting for it to freeze over and then move onto it in search of seals.
Collins, who used to work for Parks Canada in Churchill, makes the “educated guess” that there are around 100 polar bears within a 30-mile radius of the town. Area polar bears — like their counterparts in other regions — are facing an uncertain future, however, as global warming is lowering the amount of time Hudson Bay is frozen over, hampering the bears ability to hunt seals, a needed food source for carnivores that benefit from seals’ high fat content.
Global warming is happening four times faster in the Arctic than the rest of the planet, alarming polar bear advocates. Louise Archer of Polar Bears International, an NGO that works to safeguard polar bear populations, says that group has had a long relationship with Frontiers North Adventures, with that relationship including staff use of Tundra Buggies for research.
Frontiers North Adventures clients wanting to see polar bears can opt for a hotel in Churchill or instead stay in the seasonal Tundra Buggy Lodge, which has a restaurant, lounge and bunk beds with distinctive Hudson Bay Co. blankets and is found outside town. Those opting for the latter option can expect to see curious bears approaching the elevated lodge day and night, thanks to the accommodation being found at a Churchill Wildlife Management Area site dubbed Polar Bear Point, so named because it’s a prime viewing point for the carnivores.
Photos by Ian Stalker (l) and Kemi Wells-Conrad (r)
Churchill itself routinely sees bears wandering into town, with town residents warned against being outside after 10 p.m. and signs telling people how to avoid bears and what to do if encountering one.
Collins says that bears entering town were once routinely shot, a practice that continued into the 1970s.
But a shift in attitudes and the implementation of the Polar Bear Alert system – which has people notifying wildlife officers when a bear appears in town – sees quickly responding wildlife officers try to drive the bears back into wilderness through noise or failing to tranquilize them. In-town bears are also frequently captured in metal cages baited with seal meat linked to trigger mechanisms that lead to a metal sheet dropping down behind the bear, safely trapping the predator, which is then taken to the Polar Bear Holding Facility or Polar Bear Jail as it’s referred to locally.
Bears caught in the traps – which are placed in areas of Churchill in which bears are spotted – join tranquilized bears in the jail.
(There have been cases of tourists climbing into empty cages to pose for pictures, inadvertently springing the traps, and then having to be freed by wildlife officers. Those hapless visitors may later become the butt of jokes at parties attended by those officers, Collins reports.)
Polar Bear Jail, marked by a large exterior bear mural, has 28 “cells” used to detain the bears – which are regularly provided water and sleep on straw provided for comfort – until they’re released onto Hudson Bay once it freezes over.
“The very first year (of the jail) they did feed the bears and then the bears tried to break back into the jail (for additional food),” Collins says of those massive mammals which were eager to chow down again but which are actually capable of going months without eating. Jailed bears need fewer calories than roaming ones, and emerge from their temporary incarceration no worse for the wear, Collins reports.
Photos by Ian Stalker (l) and Kemi Wells-Conrad (r)
One portly bear dubbed Lard Ass by wildlife officers was “jailed” 17 times, presumably becoming very familiar with the facility.
Collins – who’s happy to offer such sensible advice as, “If you see polar bear tracks, don’t follow them. You’ll eventually run into a polar bear” – also recalls a restless bear that managed to free itself from its cell, surprising a jail employee who later entered the facility: “It was a fun day at the office.”
Collins praises Churchill’s evolution in dealing with the bears as an outstanding example of wildlife conflict management, benefitting both people and the bears as well. Churchill had 5 fatal maulings between 1965 and 1983 but hasn’t seen one since and the number of bears killed for being seen as a threat has plunged from possibly dozens a year to, Collins suggests, one every three years.
Tesarowski says Churchill deserves to be considered alongside the Galapagos and East African countries when it comes to delivering once-in-a-lifetime wildlife experiences.
“It’s not that tourists shouldn’t go to Tanzania but they should also come here,” she says. “Churchill is a unique destination in our backyard.”
“I think it’s amazing. You can’t see polar bears in many other parts of the world,” Tesarowski’s colleague Shannon Brand adds of Churchill visits.
Fresh Tracks Canada has October and November polar bear packages that have are either 7 or six days, depending on whether people opt for the Tundra Buggy Lodge or a hotel in town
The company also has winter Churchill Northern Lights packages and again sends clients to the community in July and August, a time when thousands of beluga whales gather in the Churchill River estuary and nearby Hudson Bay.
Collins acknowledges that the carbon footprint created by someone traveling to the likes of Churchill draws concern from the likes of scientists but adds that he believes that tourists who do visit can become advocates for polar bears, which are facing an uncertain future.
Meanwhile, Collins suggests that human-wildlife conflicts can generally be blamed on people, an observation based on his own observations of occasionally foolish behaviour in Churchill.
“I’ve never seen a seal approach a bear,” he says. “I cannot say that about people.”
Photos by Ian Stalker
