Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

Today we started with a tour of Churchill. Here is our stylin’ set of wheels:

One of the places we went was the “Bear Jail.” It’s a big Quonset hut that has traps/pens for about 30 bears. There were 13 there when we went. When a bear just won’t stop coming into town or somehow continually causes other issues, it is labeled a “problem bear” and is trapped and put in the bear jail. They stay there until there is enough ice on the Hudson Bay that they can release it. With that in place, it will instead then go out to the water for its food. Here is a sample bear trap:

And here is yours truly under the sign that gives the jail’s official name:

We also saw more sled dogs and puppies. They are very vocal dogs. Here’s a howler:

After the tour, we started our night buggy ride. It went from about 4pm to 9pm. There wasn’t much if any photography since it was so dark but under the moonlight, we were able to spot a bear, a few arctic hares, and an arctic fox. Not too shabby. On the drive back to the hotel the Northern Lights came out so we pulled the bus over and all got out to watch them. They formed a long green ribbon from one end of the sky to the other, swirling and dancing around. It was my first time seeing them and they were amazing. No photos of that either but now that we’re back at the hotel, they’ll wake us up if they see them again. Maybe I’ll have something to share in tomorrow night’s post.

Tomorrow (Sunday) we need to pack up to fly back to Winnipeg in the afternoon. Right before the flight though, a few of us have signed up for dog sledding. It sounds great but sounds very cold.

– Dave