I want to go to cool places (and see polar bears!)
Sunday, July 23, 2006 at 03:31PM
It’s blazing hot outside right now, and that makes me think of cool places I’d rather be – well, at least COOLER places!
One of the places I’ve always wanted to visit is Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Each year, in October & November, along the western shores of Canada’s Hudson Bay, multitudes of polar bears await the freezing of the bay so that they can begin the annual hunt for their choice prey - seals.
Normally, they are solitary creatures, but in the fall, you can see them gathering near Churchill, including baby polar bears!
While researching this entry, I found several places that offer tours. One of the oldest, with 25 years of experience, is The Tundra Buggy® Adventure. According to their website, they provide exclusive access to the polar bears at Cape Churchill inside Wapusk National Park.
Other sites include:
Wildlife Adventures
And Great White Bear Tours, whose vehicles you might see on other companies web sites. Great White Bear Tours offers you the Tundra Lodge, whereby you can “_get about as close to sleeping with the bears as anyone would care to be! Situated close by the shore of Hudson Bay in the Cape Churchill Wildlife Management Area, the Tundra Lodge is a great place to bear watch, catch the aurora on a clear night, or just plain relax between rides out on the All Terrain Buses.
The lodge is built on mobile platforms as individual units. There are two sleepers (only one shows in the above picture), a lounge car, a dining car, and a utility/crew car. A generator provides electricity for lights and battery charging. Heat is provided by propane furnaces.
Our lodge sleeps 36 people in individual rooms (restrooms are shared). The dining car has a six burner commercial stove and griddle; several BBQs are on the deck. The lounge car has a TV, VCR, and a slide projector. Cabins (and the bunks in them) are single occupancy; half are upper bunks (climb a ladder), half are lower (floor level) bunks._”
To see what the Tundra Lodge looks like, you can go here
For all the trips, prices range from $2255 (USD) for a night or two, to $6500 USD for 8 days and nights. These include meals, handling, and transportation (the tundra vehicles, and air fare via turbo prop from Winnipeg to Churchill).
And for further information, you can go to Virtual Tourist
And for further reading, you can buy this:
Churchill: Polar Bear Capital of the World
