Every autumn, on the western shore of Hudson Bay, several hundred polar bears gather on the tundra outside a town of 900 people and wait. They are waiting for the sea to freeze. When it does, usually in November, they walk out onto the ice to hunt seals for the first time in four months. In the weeks before that happens, Churchill, Manitoba becomes the most reliable place on the planet to see the largest land carnivore in the wild. The window is short, the logistics are unusual, and the experience is unlike anything else in Canada.
Why the bears come to Churchill
Polar bears hunt from sea ice and fast on land. Hudson Bay is far enough south that its ice melts completely each summer, forcing the bears ashore in July. They spend the warm months resting in the willows and along the coast, living off their fat. In October the temperature drops, the winds shift, and the bears drift north along the shore toward the point where the ice forms first. That point is near Churchill, because the Churchill River pours fresh water into the bay and the prevailing currents push the new ice against this coast. The Western Hudson Bay population numbers somewhere around 600 to 800 animals, and a large share of them pass within 30 kilometres of town every fall.
Freeze-up has been arriving later over recent decades, and the bears are spending longer on land. That is a scientific concern and part of the reason researchers have studied this population so intensively since the 1980s. It also means the viewing season has stretched a little later into November.
The October to November window
The season runs from early October to about the third week of November. Early October offers milder weather, daytime temperatures around zero, and bears that are still spread out along the coast. The peak is the last week of October through the first two weeks of November, when the bears are concentrated near the shore and the first ice is forming. Temperatures then are typically minus 5 to minus 15 degrees, with wind off the bay that makes it feel far colder, and a light snow cover that makes the bears easier to spot. Once the bay freezes solidly, often within a few days, the bears leave and the season ends abruptly. Book for late October if you can, and give yourself at least two full days on the tundra in case one is lost to weather.
Getting there: the train, the plane and no road
No road reaches Churchill. You arrive by air or by rail. Flights from Winnipeg take about two and a half hours and are the way most visitors come, though fares are high. The train is the alternative, and for many of us it is the real reason to go. The passenger service from Winnipeg covers roughly 1,700 kilometres and takes about two days, with two nights on board, running north through the aspen parkland, into boreal forest, across muskeg where the rails bend and heave over permafrost, and finally out onto open tundra. Trains run a few times a week and there is a sleeper option. It is slow, and it is often late, and you will remember it for the rest of your life. Book well ahead for the bear season.
Tundra vehicles and how the viewing works
Bears are watched from purpose-built tundra vehicles: large, high-clearance buses on wheels taller than a person, with a heated cabin and an open rear deck. In general terms, they operate on a network of old military trails in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area east of town, under permit, with a fixed number of vehicles allowed on the trails. Because the deck is well above bear height, the animals approach freely, often standing against the wheels and looking up. A day trip lasts six to eight hours with lunch on board. Some outfits also run lodges on the tundra where the vehicles are parked in a line for several nights.
The vehicles do not chase bears and they do not feed them. What you see depends on the day: a mother with two cubs asleep in the kelp, two young males sparring on their hind legs, a big male walking the shoreline testing the ice. Arctic foxes, ptarmigan, snowy owls and, if you are lucky, an Arctic hare come as bonuses. Bring binoculars and a long lens, and dress as if you will spend an hour outside on the deck at minus 15 in wind, because you will.
Belugas in summer, and the other Churchill
Churchill has a second season that fewer people know. From late June to early September, roughly 3,000 beluga whales enter the Churchill River estuary to feed and calve. They are curious animals and will follow a kayak or a small boat, singing audibly through the hull. The Western Hudson Bay beluga population is one of the largest in the world, estimated at more than 50,000. Summer also means tundra wildflowers, more than 250 bird species and long days. Polar bears are around in summer too, resting along the coast, and are seen from boats along the shore.
Year-round, the town has a compact history. The stone walls of an eighteenth-century fur trade fort stand across the river mouth, and the launch pads of a rocket research range from the 1950s and 1960s still sit on the tundra east of town.
Safety in a town where bears walk the streets
Churchill takes bear safety seriously because it must. A provincial polar bear alert program patrols the town from July to November, and bears that wander in are hazed away or, if they persist, tranquillised and held in a holding facility until the ice forms. Residents leave their vehicles unlocked so that anyone caught in the open can get inside. Sirens and warning signs mark the limits of town. The rules for visitors are simple. Do not walk alone at night, stay away from the shoreline and the rocks on foot, never approach a bear on foot for a photograph, and if you see one in town, get indoors and call the alert line. Walk in groups in daylight and stay on the streets. The bears are why you came; they are also wild, hungry and fast, and the town works because everyone remembers that.