We chose to travel by land to Churchill in order to develop a continental perspective, something that would be easily overlooked traveling by air. Many of us on the trip were from Montana; the others on the trip had come from Alaska, Virginia, Wisconsin and New Mexico. Some of us had met before, but many of us were meeting for the first time. The time on the train allowed us the opportunity to socialize and get to know each other. But it was not just our group that we were chatting with. We mingled with other travelers to Churchill, and local First Nation people, as well as getting to know the conductor quite well. Everyone in our car was included in the plethora of food. Chuck walked up and down the isles sharing elk roast, crackers and cheese, summer sausage, and of course apples and plums! And no one was left without reading material (specifically Bear News) or games to play. We were happy to include others on our excursions. This year we met a young boy from Scotland, traveling to Churchill on his own. He joined us for our first afternoon in Churchill, and he was able to see polar bears on the first scouting trip! 

From the train, we followed the changing landscape, taking note of animal activity we saw in each ecosystem. The train provided excellent opportunities to see beaver activity; river otter slides in the snow; and moose tracks along the wetland bottoms. We saw many miles of boreal forest with tall trees silhouetted by the moon and more northern lights! I fell asleep that night wondering what the morning would bring.

The view out the window that morning looked very different from the night before, we were in the tundra! The trees became shorter and much farther apart, almost like little islands in a sea of snow. Although these trees were roughly the same age as the tall trees of the Boreal forest, they stood only about six feet tall, bearing witness to the difficulty of life here. I could not feel the outside temperature or winds, but the snowdrifts and circular patterns in the snow gave a clear picture of the harshness of this environment. I stared out the window looking for tracks and finally found the tracks I was after. They weren't the little fox or moose tracks we had seen many miles before. These were gigantic- literally the size of snowshoes, but they belonged to polar bears! We started seeing them all over, right into Churchill.

When we arrived in town, we spent some time getting settled and having lunch at the Centre, and we were out to look for bears by early afternoon. We were all hopeful that we'd see polar bears, but I don't know if anyone expected to have the viewing experience that we had the first day. We spotted our first bears near the Centre, a mom and her cub were lounging on the ice of a lake. The cub suddenly became very curious about us and decided to come check us out, and mom was close behind. As they approached, we quickly boarded the school bus. I watched as the cub walked right up to our bus and stood up against my window, looking me in the eye.

I had feelings of awe and guilt over this experience. On one hand it was incredible to have such a close experience with a polar bear, but on the other hand, we were allowing this young cub to approach humans with a neutral response. I wondered if we were encouraging bad habits for this mom and cub, habits that have already been encouraged by tundra buggies who allow bears to approach and then shoo them away. So when mom approached the bus, we started the engine and the pair wandered off.

Great Bear classes prefer to observe bears in their natural habitat- hunting seals out on the sea ice. We had many of these viewing opportunities! We also saw bears around the Centre, and unfortunately, in the garbage dump. The bears are drawn to the dump for food, especially before the sea ice forms. This has again become a real problem for bear management, and the polar bears.

I knew this would be a trip about polar bears, and it was, but it was much more. We watched amazing northern lights dance across the sky (and we were there before the prime viewing season); waited in anticipation while foxes stalked and pounced on their prey; and spent hours learning how other species survive the extremes of the Arctic. Our group also saw arctic foxes, snowy owls, arctic hares and a Gyr Falcon. We had excellent snow conditions and weather this year, making it ideal for playing in snowdrifts and on the frozen ponds. When we weren't looking for polar bears, we were busy making snow angels, building igloos, chasing voles on the ice and digging the bus out of snowdrifts. We were delighted to have plenty of snow for wrestling and snowball fights, as most of us had come from Montana where we had no snow accumulation yet.

Many groups offer trips to Churchill to see the polar bears, but few offer an experience quite like ours. We stayed at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre where we shared slide shows, videos, lectures and meals with other groups and the Centre staff. We visited the local schools, presenting slide shows and talks about our work in Montana and the similarity between living with polar bears in Churchill and living with bears, wolves and mountain lions in Montana. A number of the travelers on the trip this year came with a skill or experience to share. We even enjoyed a demonstration on how to make a friction fire by Lynx, a member of our group who teaches primitive living skills in Northwest Montana.

Our focus on people took us to the Churchill Town Centre, where we talked about the history of the Dene people and their story of being moved off of their land to Churchill. We also visited the Dene memorial site and the Eskimo Museum. Lastly, we explored survival in the arctic. We built igloos cutting out large blocks of heavily wind-packed snow to create a shelter- a method that has long been used by the Inuit to survive the harshness of the arctic. If there were a theme for this trip, it would be interaction. We didn't come just to tour the arctic; we were there to experience it, and be a part of it!