#Churchill polar bears

[travelernight]

Ultimate Canada Journey: 10 Stops You Need to Make

[unbfacts]

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

a polar bear approaches town, churchill, manitoba

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A polar bear wanders around the Tundra Buggy Lodge at Cape Churchill, overlooking Hudson Bay.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAISY GILARDINI

[pangeen]

“ Nap Attack “ // © Martin Gregus 

Music:  Kristian Sonderlund - World of Water

[kaelula-sungwis]

🇨🇦🐻‍❄️🐻‍❄️🐻‍❄️ by Dave Wong Via Flickr: Family portrait of twin polar bear cubs with mom :)

[littlepawz]

Polar bear under the Northern Lights

[notbornwithit]

Churchill, MB August 2022

[rogue-coyote]

guess whose going to the arctic this fall :-) MEEEEE

really excited to see Churchill for the first time, do some cool research, and mentor some young Indigenous scientists <3

[fragmentaryremains]

#still concerned about the polar bear in Manitoba tbh

To be fair, that's also a case of one area in Manitoba having a disproportionate impact on the results. The most likely explanation behind the polar bear incidents is Wapusk National Park (and the nearby town of Churchill too). I'm admittedly more unfamiliar with this compared to the Alberta towns I've talked about, but from just a cursory glance it's easy to guess how a town known as the "polar bear capital of the world" could have a disproportionate impact on the collected stats here. Churchill's pretty much right in the path of the polar bears migratory path from land to the sea ice. If that's not enough, it also offers great opportunities to see belugas and the northern lights as well. That means that despite it being completely inaccessible via road, you'll still get plenty of tourists who are specifically there for the bears.

That being said, the low number of incidents speaks to how well things are being handled there. Seven incidents over eleven years is not that bad considering where it is. And the town of Churchill is doing quite a lot of work in order to prevent repeat conflict between humans and polar bears too. There was actually a really good article from CBC a couple days ago that goes into what it's like living alongside all those polar bears (such as the fact the town has to have a "polar bear jail"). It's definitely worth looking into if you like these sorts of topics!

As an aside, I'm starting to wonder if this map is doubly skewed—given that it's data is being sourced from Parks Canada, I can't help but think it's only covering National Parks (so it would include Wapusk, but not Churchill). It still explains Alberta given that Banff and Jasper are in their respective National Parks. But it would also mean that there'd be significant gaps in what data is being recorded too. I kind of wonder what a more precise version of this map where it's matched to the National Parks of each province would look like.

Most common wildlife attacks by Canadian province

[quotesfrommyreading]

Churchill is a town utterly of the north. Its gridded blocks of aluminum-sided houses sit between miles of cratered tundra and the icy mouth of the Churchill River. This cold flank of Hudson Bay was once a meeting place for Inuit hunters and the Cree and Dene First Nations. Today, about three-quarters of Churchill’s almost 900 residents identify as indigenous. The town boasts one of the only movie theaters within a thousand miles, as well as access to Canada’s only deep-water port in the Arctic.

As the climate warms, more bears wander into Churchill to scavenge—or moon around in backyards, or chew the seat off a snowmobile. Mayor Michael Spence, a member of the Cree First Nation, says bear sightings were a novelty when he was a boy in the early 1960s—he remembers playing in a game of road hockey that was interrupted by a mother and two cubs—but today they are more common.

On Halloween 2013, a 30-year-old woman named Erin Greene, who had moved to Churchill from Montreal the previous year, was leaving a party with friends when she looked over her shoulder. “There’s this bear that’s already full-speed running at us,” Greene says. While her friends ran for help, the bear began carrying her off. “I realized that this was a fight I couldn’t win on my own and just accepted that this is the way I was going to die,” she says.

Just in time, a neighbor appeared, striking the bear’s head with a shovel. The bear dropped her and she was airlifted to the hospital to treat her life-threatening injuries. Despite the terrifying ordeal Greene suffered, and the scars and occasional pains she still bears, she returned to Churchill. The reason, she says, is a quality particular to the north. “The cold burns your face, the sky is beautiful, the animals could be around every corner. It’s so real, it’s so raw,” she says. She feels a different connection to polar bears now—“a different understanding.” Her medical bills added up to thousands of dollars, but the local community paid them all.

  —  Polar Bears Live on the Edge of the Climate Change Crisis

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

Churchill, Manitoba

Taken October 2024

[sparklehoard]

9, 13, 22? For the get to know you asks ^^

9! What's your all time favorite movie/TV show?

That's a toughie. My childhood favorite was Lilo and Stitch and I love that movie to this day. I even have a concept art book because I loved the watercolor backgrounds for that movie so much 💛 as an adult I think ghibli movies are a favorite but How to be Single and Amelie are my favorites as well.

13. Dream place to visit?

Aaaah everywhere!! But I'd love to take advantage of the fact since I've got Irish lineage I'd get a free year long visa to go to Ireland. I'd also love to go to Japan! Visit the fancy hot springs. Visit the animal Islands like the fox and deer ones. But frankly take me anywhere that's warm!!! I want to go!!!

22. Best memory you can think of?

First one that popped into my head was my trip to iceland!! Because I was on the topic of trips!

My family and my home town is terribly conservative so I couldn't experience a lot of LGBT culture growing up. But my mother wanted to run the Reykjavic marathon. It's a 10k through the city and she signed all 6 of us up.

We ran and we got separated to the point where we didn't see eachother the whole race. But as I ran I saw houses with rainbow flags. Same sex couples with kids waving to all the runners from their from porches. It made me so happy. The route was by a lot of houses. People were having parties to watch the runners. People were playing instruments from their front steps as we ran by (there was an 80 year old guy just KILLING it on the trumpet 🔥) but I saw so many rainbow flags and happy families out in the open it was one of the best experiences I can remember. 🏳️‍🌈 I had a good run I finished strong!!!

[sitting-on-me-bum]

An Arctic fox gives a huge yawn before curling up to keep warm from a strong northerly wind in Churchill, Man. About the size of small house cats, Arctic foxes remain active all through the long northern winter, often following polar bears to the sea ice to scavenge their leavings. 

Photo: Dave Sandford

2023 Canadian Wildlife Photography of the Year