Bear With Me

The Polar Bear Capital of the World.

 If you are a regular reader you may have noticed that I have a soft spot for train travel. If I could I would take a train over any other mode of transportation. My Travel Bucket List has a “Riding all the Via Rail offerings across Canada” option. There are four trips, Vancouver to Toronto (five days), Montreal to Halifax (2 days), Jasper to Prince Rupert (2 days) and Winnipeg to Churchill (2 days).

We completed “Vancouver to Toronto” leg last March and have the Montreal to Halifax leg booked for February 2026. See blog, April 2025 “Riding the Iron Horse with Gourmet Meals”

Photo: Blog April 2025

https://brettandnonie.blogspot.com/2025/04/

It was during my research for these rail trips that I learned all about the town of Churchill, the Polar Bear Capital of the World. It is not an easy place to get too. For our trip, it started in Kelowna with a flight to Calgary, then on to Winnipeg the start of our two night, 1,085 km train journey north to Hudson Bay and the small village of Churchill.

With a current population of around 700, Churchill gained life first as a Hudson Bay trading post followed by an American WWII military air base, a port for shipping Prairie grain and presently, the Polar Bear Capital of the world.

Our train consisted of a freight car and two older Via passenger cars for Economy class passengers. Reclining seats where passengers would be living and sleeping for the next two days.  There are 71 stops between Winnipeg and Churchill. Most are request stops for places only accessible by the train.

We had a stop the next day in the city of Thompson where the highway system ends and the train becomes the only land line. Locals, mostly indigenous, travel here by train, stock up on supplies then fill the freight car for the return home.  We were allowed off the train at some of these stops where we would find the train surrounded by ATV's quickly being loaded with everything but the kitchen sink. Large, Costco size packages of toilet paper seemed to be the largest commodity leaving the freight car.

In addition to the economy cars there were two Sleeper class cars of the same look and vintage of VIA's Canadian train.   The train is advertised as having a dome/bar car but on this trip we had a dining car instead. There are no gourmet meals served. The meals provided are for sale. They are  microwaveable meals similar to airplane food. The dining car served well as a replacement for the dome car as much of the trip is across the tundra and to be honest it is a little boring.  

There is an official bear season in Churchill. It starts the second week of October and ends at the end of November and is reputed to be the best time to see a bear. Churchill is blessed with bears by the fact of its location on the shores of Hudson Bay as it is one of the first areas of the Bay to start to freeze up.  Churchill is also home to a large Beluga whale population that come to the Churchill River every spring to start a family and in the colder months, the Northern Lights are the draw. 

Bears will travel from hundreds of kilometres to reach shores near Churchill to get out on the pack ice as soon as possible. Here, they will live for the next 6 months hunting seals and building up stores of fat. While on land, they eat very little, living off the fat they have accumulated so life slows down for the bears with lots of snoozing.  Sort of similar to what I do during the winter only I keep the fat on for the rest of the year. 

There are only two trains to Churchill each week.  When I was trying to book the train for Bear Season back in November 2024, I found all available roomettes already booked for October and much of November. At our age, two days in a reclining seat with 40 other passengers was not something we really wanted to do but would if we had to.

Returning to the Via website later in the week to book tickets, I found a single roomette available for a train on Oct. 5^th, just outside the Bear Season but close enough to take a chance. It was the most expensive roomette available as it was larger then the regular roomette accommodating three passengers. The bonus was that neither Nonie nor I had to sleep in the top bunk as two of the beds were at floor level so those nightly climbs down the creepy ladder to the bathroom were not necessary.

Photo: Blog April 2025

Next, finding a place to stay took on a challenge. There were no bookings available for our arrival on October 7^th but Booking.com had a listing available for the 8^th to the 10^th. I contacted the place directly to see to see if I could get on a cancellation list. I was contacted a few days later by the Bears Den Guest House saying they could accommodate our schedule. The breakfasts were sublime. The day we left, the Bears Den was fully booked to the end of the bear season.  

Photo: Booking.com 

Arranging a flight back to Winnipeg had its own issues as we could not book the flight outside of six months prior to our departure date meaning the earliest I could book was April 2025.  Missing the flight meant a return by train but only in economy as all the roomettes were booked. Two days in reclining seats with 40 friends. Ewww. At exactly 6 months from our travel date, at Central Standard Time, I was on line to book our return flight to Winnipeg. Success. 

The wrecked airplane in the picture is called Miss Piggy. Missed the tarmac in Churchill by a few hundred metres a few years ago. Perhaps the train might be a better option.   

There are two ways to see the bears besides walking around Churchill which is good as all the danger signage kind of freaked us out and we weren't armed.  

One option is by a 4x4 truck. The trucks are allowed to travel in search of bears on the limited gravel roads that run along the coast line from Churchill.   

Or a Tundra Buggy. The tundra buggies are not allowed on the coastal roads, instead they can use old military roads that crisscross the tundra.  

 Photo: wildlifediaries.com

 

Tundra in physical geography is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. 

Wikipedia

Photo: churchillscience.ca 

Once I had the travel and lodging logistics confirmed I could start to book our adventures. We were able to quickly book a full day 4x4 truck adventure through Sub-Artic tours. Shout out to guide and owner Leroy for a great day. 

If he saw another truck sitting in one spot location for a while, there was a good chance they had spotted a bear so he would carefully insert us nearby without interfering with the other trucks. 

Our day started with an email from Leroy to tell us he was picking us up early as they were releasing a mother bear and her two cubs from Polar Bear jail.  

The Polar Bear Holding Facility is a special building where bears that are considered troublesome or dangerous are isolated until they can be relocated. Before the facility was established, bears were considered dangerous and shot.  Wikipedia

The bears can be held in the cells for up to 30 days receiving no food during there incarceration. Their captivity is meant to impart a sense of danger in the bears creating a reluctancy for the them to return to town. 

The bears are transported to a site at least 40 km distance from Churchill. The relocation must be carried out by helicopters as there are no roads. The bears are first tranquilized then loaded into rope slings attached to and hung underneath helicopters. then gently dropped into their new home.  

 

Leroy shared a short video that was taken of the mother and cubs as they started to come around from the tranquilizer. It was emailed to Leroy from his cousin who was part of the team that stays near the bears and protects then from scavengers till they are fully awake.  This whole process does sound terrible but the alternative is death. 

I have attached a short video of the cubs being helicoptered away. 

In the background of this photograph are remains of a radar installation located on the site of a Strategic Air Command base built by the Americans in 1942 and later used by the Royal Canadian Air Force.  

The base was decommissioned and demolished in 1980. The runway is still in use along with some of the hangars for YYQ, Churchill airport.

The area was also used as a rocket research range. Established in 1954. It launched over 3500 sub-orbital flights used to study atmospheric phenomena and auroras. Local rumour has it they were trying to weaponize the Northern Lights.

The site has been repurposed and is now home to the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, The Centre focuses on environmental research and education.  I did not see weaponization on the Centre's syllabus. 

This guy was basking the sun but keeping a beady eye on all of us. 

These two juvenile brothers were working hard turning over rocks to find a snack. 

Thanks to Leroy and Sub Arctic Tours, our first day was a success. We could not have had a better start to our Churchill adventure.

Booking a tundra buggy adventure was a different story. I found them totally booked out for my dates. I contacted the companies to see if they could place us on a cancellation list. Early in January, we were contacted by Frontiers North and our adventure to the Polar Bear Capital of the World was complete, a full day tundra buggy adventure booked. 

Riding the  tundra was like listening to bagpipes, the first couple of hours are fun but after that you just want it to end. It was much like riding in a boat in rough seas with lots of rolling side to side and up and down. Remaining seated was the rule. 

Thankfully we spent a lot of time stopped, giving my stomach a chance to recover. 

It took over an hour to drive from the marshalling site to the area approved for the tundra buggies. There was already several buggies out on the tundra with their giant lenses fully erect. There were definitely bears in the area. 

We had us a "Polar Bear Jamb". 

We  had faced a similar jamb in another adventure. A Lion jamb. Guides were always keeping in touch so it didn't take long for others to show up at a lion sighting. No rules here on how close you could be but you did have to stay on the roads and of course in your vehicles.  I have attached a link below. 

https://brettandnonie.blogspot.com/2011/03/

This sighting found us watching a mother with her two young cubs chilling out on the shores of Hudson Bay. Cubs will stay with their mother for 2 1/2 to 3 years before venturing out on their own.  

Find a link below to a great website on Churchill's polar bear cubs. 

https://churchillwild.com/international-polar-bear-day-2025/

We were across a large pond about 300 metres away. My little point and shoot camera with the 40X zoom lens did not disappoint. 

The day passed quickly without another sighting. As we headed back to the yard. Our guide suggested that we take an alternate route that would bring us past the mom and her cubs again. We arrived and found mom and kids more active than in the morning. With in a few minutes of our arrival mom started to move towards the road we were on and with kids in tow.  

They kept coming till they reached the road where we were parked. 

To our surprise momma bear turned toward our buggy and kept coming with the kids a little hesitant, following behind. 

In a whisper, our guide told us to be very quiet, no loud noises and don't call out to the bears. Just enjoy moment. 

Before we knew it they were up close and personal. Whoa, our bucket list was filled to overflowing. 

Mom and the cubs seemed quite interested, sniffing out all the delicious scents coming from the buggy. When we had seen them earlier in the day there were 4 tundra buggies surrounding them and probably more found them during the rest of the day. I think that she finally decided the buggies were not a threat and it was time to check one out.  

It was at this moment, that one of our senior passengers decided that he should stick his head out the window and call out "HERE, BEAR, HEAR BEAR, BEAR" in a load gravelly voice. To be fair, the old fart was as deaf as a post and probably did not hear the guides instructions about not calling out to the bears. Momma bear decided she had seen enough. Nothing to eat here. 

 

We can leave tomorrow with no regrets. We could not have asked for a better ending to our adventure. 

Definitely in our top five. 

But it was not the end of our adventure. Churchill still had one more experience.  As we were loading the car for the airport the next day we started to hear the sounds of shot guns coming from two different and nearby locations. Seems the Bear Police were busy. They use special shot gun shells that make a lot of noise to scare away the bears that may be getting too close to town.  Perhaps we should have paid attention to those danger signs. It was a great send off. 

As I do my usual terrible job of proof reading this blog, I  realized I have not really painted a clear picture of Churchill and all it has to offer. Room for another blog, I think. Stay tuned. 

Bearly There

Our life did not go as planned in 2024. Health issues reminded us that we were not invulnerable and led to the cancellation of our bucket list trip to Norway in the fall. Our self assurance for international travel had taken a big hit. We were unclear what our lives would be like going forward into 2025 causing us to rethink and revise our travel plans.

For the last 20 years we have travelled the world with out any serious health incidents and the goal to continue to travel the world as long as we could. We did realize that at some point our age would get in the way and when the time came, we could spend more time seeing Canada. 

Our health has improved but our confidence still needs a bit of rebuilding, so we made the decision to start on our Canadian bucket list in 2025 and get our mojo back. With left over travel money from 2024 added to our stash for 2025, we were able to consider taking two of our more expensive Canadian trips in the same year. 

The Great Bear Rainforest

The Great Bear Rainforest is a temperate rain forest on the Pacific coast of British Columbia comprising 6.4 million hectares. It is part of the larger Pacific temperate rainforest Eco-region, which is the largest coastal temperate rainforest in the world. It encompasses an area of 32,000 sq. km from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to Haida Gwaii in the north with an area of roughly 32,000 sq km. The area is home to species such as cougars, wolves, salmon, grizzly bears and the Kermode (spirit) bear. A unique subspecies of black bear, in which one in ten cubs displays a recessive white coloured coat.    Wikipedia  

                

The inspiration for the trip into the Great Bear Rainforest arose from a trip we took to Haida Gwaii. 

See blog Nov 2016 The Missing Misty and Mysterious Haida Gwaii 

Images on a video shown on the ferry  about the Great Bear Rainforest and Kermode or Spirit Bear contained footage of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park and the grizzly bears that can be found there feeding on spawning salmon that come up the Atnarko River in the Bella Coola valley.  

Returning home from Haida Gwaii and researching (YouTube videos) the Park, seeing the images, a trip to the Bella Coola Valley was born along with a stay at the expensive Tweedsmuir Park Lodge. The Lodge is located 30 km outside of the village of Bella Coola and can be reached by car or ferry from Vancouver Island.

Photo: Rainforest Conservation Foundation

Our trip started by car from Penticton with an overnight in the city of Williams Lake then on to Bella Coola the next day. It was early September and we left Penticton with temperatures still in the low 30's with the hope to find cooler temperatures in Bella Coola.  As the weather cools, the temperatures of the water in the spawning rivers drop. The cooler water attracts the salmon into the spawning rivers. Cold water is necessary to ensure the salmon eggs will develop properly. These rivers filled with spawning salmon are what attract the grizzlies to the area.

Road access to Bella Coola is Highway #20 and runs 454 km from Williams Lake in the Central Interior of BC into the Bella Coola Valley. The road is nicely paved for the first 319 km to Anaheim Lake. Here it transitions into a all-season gravel road. It was at that exact moment where my windshield, newly replaced only two weeks before was kissed by some of that gravel and developed a new small crack. WTF.

From here the highway starts descending into Heckman Pass. The descent is 43 km long and includes a 19 km section with steep grades, some up to 18%. This section is nicknamed The HILL and is listed on the website Dangerous Roads. I have included a link to their website below.  Photo:roadtrippers.com

Driving the treacherously steep Bella Coola Road in British Columbia

The video does not really show how scary it is to drive down a hill with a 18% grade. Thankfully the road returns to pavement at the bottom of descent. Not for the lighthearted and vehicles with worn out brakes. I did not mention this part of the drive to Nonie. She screamed like a little girl on two of the really steep hairpin sections.

We have been spending a lot of time in BC's rainforests for the last few years and have found many areas suffering drought conditions with forest fires becoming omnipresent.

See blog Oct. 2023 What to Expect Hiking in a  Rainforest

Sadly the Park has not been left untouched. The highway took us within a few kilometres of a new fire started by lightening a few days before. We were lucky that the road remained open, It did close for several hours the next day affecting the arrival of some Lodge guests.  

As we entered the Park, we found that an earlier fire had nearly taken out the park sign. 

Our home for the next 3 nights was Tweedsmuir Park Lodge advertised as located in the depth of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. They made it sound very remote but in fact located only a stones throw from Highway #20 but it was located on the banks of the Atnarko, a spawning river. 

Upon arrival we were given a "bear aware" talk. Basically, keep your head on a swivel when wandering the Lodge grounds. While we were inside checking in, a bear walked along the river at the bottom the grounds and disappeared into the trees. By the time we had got outside, it had disappeared. 

We had a very nice cabin with all the modern conveniences, including a full bathroom, gas fireplace and thankfully air conditioning. 

The temperatures were in the high 20's for our entire stay. Temperatures for this time of year are usually in the mid-teens.

The lodge was all inclusive and included daily guided opportunities to see Grizzlies. Our itinerary included two four hour raft floats down the Atnarko 

The raft could accommodate 6 people, are quite light and easily manoeuvred on the water. 

and two 4 hour guided trail hikes. 

Sneaking up on Grizzly bears is not recommended.  

The lodge also has a bear watching tower located on the river and 50 metres away from our cabin. I started off each morning and ended each day in the tower with a coffee, binoculars and camera at the ready for the illusive grizzly that wondered through on the day we arrived. 

We had arrived at the early part of the spawning cycle so the warmer temperatures were keeping the salmon from making their way up from the Burke Channel and into the Atnarko in the great amounts that would attract Grizzlies.

Sadly, we were not blessed to see a grizzly. We were never in the right place or time to see the few grizzlies that were around. We had to be satisfied with a half eaten salmon, some steaming bear scat, fresh bear tracks on the wet river banks and the stories of our fellow travellers, most who were lucky enough to see a bear. 

Disappointed is an understatement. But on the bright side, I am already making plans to return to the the Great Bear Rainforest for another try. Stay tuned. 

There was still some icing left on our trip. A ten hour BC Ferry ride on the Northern Sea Wolf from Bella Coola to town of Port Hardy on the north end of Vancouver Island. 

Bella Coola is located at the extreme end of the North Bentinck Arm, a fjord like body of water that empties into the Burke Channel. The Arm meets all the attributes of a fjord accept being too wide. 

It does have all the beautiful scenery that can be found in fjords.

We woke up to a pea soup fog. With a 7:00 am departure. we were required to be on site and ready to board the ferry by 5:30 am. 

Every vehicle, included big RVs had to back onto the ferry thus the 5:30 am arrival. 

But we were rewarded for the early day with a beautiful sunrise as we departed Bella Coola.  

It was a calm and sea sick free crossing to Port Hardy and our return home. 

We will have a few weeks before we head out on our next bear adventure.