Thursday, March 18, 2010
Churchill is a place I have always dreamed of visiting. It really is part of my "bucket list", must sees before I leave this planet!. And it is one dream that has finally come true.
Who can resist the allure of this small town. The polar bear capital of the world, a northern town, almost in the Arctic, where there is sea ice. Whenever there has been talk of this small northern Manitoba town I have been fascinated.
The dream however, is a little different from the reality.
Churchill has about one third the population of Rankin Inlet, 900 compared to 2800. It is obviously a tourist town, and has many hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts. All the street signs are polar bears. There are many attractions, including the Eskimo Museum, the Train museum, souvenir shops selling carvings, tuftings and clothing, and hockey. (Hockey is an attraction in all northern towns, and one of the activities that draws the towns together.)
I arrived in Churchill on Saturday morning, and checked into my hotel at 2am. A little late, but that is when the medevac plane had arrived and been put away. The airport is about 6 miles from the town. It was part of the old army/air force base. That is known as Fort Churchill and it seems that not much of it is still in use, or even there.
When you arrive from the North, the great thing about Churchill is the trees. It is also an amazing part of the landscape if you arrive from the south. Churchill is just south of the tree line. There are trees. They are short, often have branches on only one side, because of the wind, and are often hundreds of years old. Locals tell me that Inuit children arrive and are in awe of the "tall" trees. People from southern climes are also in awe of the trees, but more because of their survival, and shape.
On a number of flights to and through the aeroport, I have met and seen a number of tourists going on eco tours in Churchill. Have looked up some of the available tours, just to see when and how I could do one. They generally guarantee that you will see bears, whales, seals, wolves, and various other wildlife. (This is the one aspect of northern life that has escaped me. So far have seen various birds and siksiks in the summer, and in the winter, Ravens and Arctic Hares.)
Many of the tourists have talked about the polar bear jail. Churchill is well known for it. This is an old Quanset building near the airport, and not a tourist attraction. Tourists are not allowed to visit it. I was also told that the bears are not fed while there, because they are caught during their "lean times". They can be there for a month, and are flown by helicopter to new locations when it is time. From reading I understand they are also marked so if they arrive too many times, more drastic action can be taken.
There are many rumours about polar bears. One of the Midwives talks about how a polar bear, when she was working in Churchill, killed a young man. You hear that they are the only animal that will hunt and stalk man. You also hear that they avoid man. (I do know that when we went to Marble Island, the tour guides carried rifles to keep bears away.) Whether polar bears are a menace to man seems to be unknown. Obviously if you get between a mother and her cubs, there is a problem. It is not a good idea to be out walking where there are bears, and they warn you of this on walking trails in this town.
Check out time at the hotel was 11am. I was actually quite tired. On Friday had worked the usual 8:30-5:00 but had been called about 4:30 and then worked until plane landed at 2am. It had been a long day. The hotel had arranged for a ride for me to the airport at 19:00. Luckily the clerk knew the airline schedules. She phoned and we found out the plane actually left at 18:00, so they changed my ride time. She also mentioned that I should go to the Trading Post, down two blocks. We then talked about the polar bear in the lobby. It is standing upright, and HUGE. She said that while she was on a recent vacation it had been damaged. The claws of one front paw had been taken out and the other paw had been cut and was now hanging. Poor bear.
I went to the Trading Post. Quite an amazing souvenir shop with lots of Inuit carvings, books, clothing, including kamiks and slippers and boots of all kinds, but not many of the cheap souvenirs you find in normal stores. I was totally surprised at the price of the carvings. This is just out of the north and prices were 5-6 times what they were in Rankin. However, they did have some hand towels with dog teams and polar bears on them that I did purchase. Next I walked along the main street, and in the middle of town came to some welcome to Churchill signs. It seemed surprising that they were here, until I realized that most people arrived in this town by train. From here you could also see the Port building. All the boats travelling to northern hamlets leave from this Port, so quite a bit of freight travels through here.
The train station was in the middle of town. So, my next walk was to the Train Station museum. This is a national historic site. That means government hours, and not open on the weekend. I do wonder how a site that makes it profit, or loss, on tourists would not be open on weekends, except of course, it is the slow season and winter. Turned out there was a hockey tournament in town this weekend, though, and that I was lucky to have a room. The town was completely booked up!
Next was lunch. The desk clerk had said there were about three restaurents open in town. The plane crew, who were stationed there, told me about two. One was in the hotel I was staying in and the other was down the street. I headed down the street, and had a lovely salad. Then headed for the Eskimo Museum.
Again, I realized it was the off season, and a weekend. The Eskimo Museum was not open until 13:00 and I was a few minutes early. Decided to walk up to what looked like an old building. Turned out it was actually a new outbuilding of some kind, but it was on snowmobile and walking trails. Really they were not walking trails though because this is where I encountered the "Polar Bear Alert" signs, and I could see that they were every hundred feet or so along the trail. Oh well, back to the Eskimo Museum.
This is a museum that is worthwhile for anyone to see. There were children there, and adults and all seemed to be enjoying it. Mostly it is showing the history of the Inuit through their carvings. Of course, some of them were hunting scenes, and some were the ends of harpoons and fish harpoons. It was VERY interesting. They also had some sculptures depicting scenes, which were likely made in Rankin, as this is the area where pottery was developed, and that only since the 1970's. In the area of the gift shop they again had lots of small carvings. I had already purchased similar small carvings in Rankin but the prices were about 4 times higher in Churchill.
I walked around town. Had been told to go to the "Centre". It is actually the area where the hospital (10 beds), the school and the shops, other than groceries were. Really about four small stores, including the liquor store, in one small building. After wandering around this area and recognizing how much better the housing and store construction were than further north I headed back to the hotel. Was exhausted and decided that a cup of tea was in order. Went to the hotel cafe and had a veggie burger and tea. Read my book and then paid, bought a scratch and win (which are not available in Rankin) crossword and went back to the lobby. Scratched my ticket and won $5, so went back to the cafe and got $2 and another ticket. Went back to the lobby and scratched. I won $10 this time, so back to the cafe and got $7 and a ticket. Back to the lobby and scratched. Won $20. Back to the cafe and picked up $17 and a ticket. Back to the lobby and did not win. So read my book until my ride came. He was early because he had boxes that had to be checked in at the aeroport. That worked out well for me. The caffeine in the tea was just kicking in and I was waking up.
We drove to the aeroport, and he pointed out the bear jail to me. There is a small sign on it with a bear behind bars, but since tourists are not allowed near, there is no other indication of what this large quanset building is. The terminal building has a display of a few artifacts from the area. There are pictures of Fort Churchill. One artist called "We are Bears" sells nice polar bear jewellry when the flights come in. And they put out coffee and sometimes cookies for passengers who are waiting for flights.
As we were taxiing there was a beautiful sunset...starting pink and then a beautiful full red. It was a lovely end to the day in Churchill.
Global warming is definitely having an effect in this area. Several times I heard comments and worry about the warm temperatures. It was actually slushy while I was there, and that was early March. The locales were concerned about the number of bears that would be coming in, and that they would be coming much earlier than usual. As we flew over the Hudson's Bay there was open water very close to the shore. Bears hunt from the edge of the floes, and if they are close to any town they will come in to the garbage dumps. (I am told by the Inuit that you can tell from pictures, where bears are from. If they have a yellowish tinge you know that they are from near Churchill, because they are eating garbage and now seals. If they eat mostly seals they are much whiter, and the whitest, in pictures are usually from Repulse Bay or north of the Arctic Circle).
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