Arctic Kingdom's camp on the Polar Bear Migration Route is just south of the Gellini River, near Arviat, in Hudson Bay
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| The collection of cabins; the camp near Arviat |
They must have had me in mind when they set up this particular adventure; the 'Polar Bear Migration Route'. The camp is seriously remote, in the wilderness of Hudson Bay. We flew 40 minutes north from Churchill by Twin Otter turbo (charter) plane, landing on an impossible looking landing site, right next to the cabins. It wasn't a landing strip, more like another piece of arctic dirt/ice/snow, without rocks. We measured the plane's tyre tracks later as 25 metres. Yep, he put the plane down in 25 metres! Granted the soil was soft, so that would have absorbed some of the impact. Down the plane went, and the pilot did a little twist just after he landed; we were down. Unbelievable!
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| The morning after! My cabin had the pink door |
There were 6 of us adventuresome guests, plus 6 staff – and I was the only female! I got to have my own cabin, complete with its own generator for emergencies, air horn for bear alerts, coffee maker, walkie talkie phone, 2 gas heaters, a Pacto toilet (google that one!) and a shower – hmmmm, that one was a bit of a mission.
It was reasonably 'warm' when we first arrived, but winter arrived with a blast overnight, and snap froze everything. The cold was quite severe compared with the day before, and got colder, getting to about -25C with wind chill. So, not quite winter really. I have never seen ice pile up like it did on the beaches and rolling along the waves. The ice on the ponds and lakes froze too of course, and was a weird evil green – very strange. I've never had such cold painful hands so frequently before, and the weird thing about that was that I got used to it! Unreal.
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| Nosey - being nosey He really was hyperactive |
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Ummmmm – I haven't said much about the bears have I. Well, sigh, we saw four from the plane on the way in, then two more in the distance during the 5 days there, so no bears at all up close. I think it was probably the bleakest turnout of bears that Arctic Kingdom have ever had there. There was a gorgeous little Arctic fox, called Nosey, who put in several entertaining appearances, and was a delight to photograph. We went for several wonderful walks, mainly looking for Ursus Maritimus, and finding plenty of sign of caribou and foxes, and some sign of bears too – but no sights!
There's a larger pic of Nosey playing with a raven, amongst the larger pics at the bottom.
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| Chopper flight for those who couldn't wait |
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Churchill airport's runway froze over the day we were supposed to fly out, together with very high winds, so our small plane couldn't come and retrieve us. How sad! Three of us weren't at all upset about it, and didn't join 4 others who elected to charter a chopper and try to catch their connections; they managed it – by two minutes.
We not only had an extra day there in that wonderful Arctic wonderland, but also the Northern Lights came out to play for the first time up there. Max had never seen them before, and Todd had never had the chance to photograph them, so the three of us had an entertaining evening sharing settings, laughs, and of course our images.
And the final coup de grace – when we arrived back in Churchill the next day, the driver (with 30 years of polar bear guiding) took us to where he 'just happened to know' there was a bear – up close. How lucky was that! Northern lights, plus a polar bear up close, because we had to stay an extra night. Yipee!!!
And the final coup de grace – when we arrived back in Churchill the next day, the driver (with 30 years of polar bear guiding) took us to where he 'just happened to know' there was a bear – up close. How lucky was that! Northern lights, plus a polar bear up close, because we had to stay an extra night. Yipee!!!
