Polar Bear Alley

This is a collection of northern stories - polar bear, arctic and otherwise from churchill, manitoba, canada - the polar
bear capital of the world.

It follows the polar bears of western Hudson Bay during their season on land from mid-July to November.

Churchill Travel Guide
Hotels in Churchill, Manitoba
Travel to Churchill, Manitoba
Polar Bear Alley Expeditions

Polar Bears of Churchill Book
Polar Bears of Churchill Facts

Polar Bear Photo Gallery
Beluga Whale Photo Gallery
Polar Bear News 
Polar Bear Attack Page

Munck's Cafe Publishing

Weather in Churchill, Manitoba

Hudson Bay Sea Ice Update

Tide Table for Churchill

Churchill Aurora Forecast

Polar Bear Blog

Today's Blog 
October 9-18, 2006
October 1-October 9, 2006
Sept 24-October 1, 2006
Sept 15-23, 2006
Sept 1-8, 2006
August 20-31, 2006
August 8-17, 2006
August 1-8, 2006  
July 25-31, 2006  
July 18-24, 2006   
July 12-17, 2006   
July 2006   
June 2006  
May 2006 
Archived articles

Polar Bear Blog - Churchill's First Drive Thru - October 26th, 2006

Bear season is never boring, I can tell you that. This morning, we arrived at the dog yard to some very juicy gossip! It seems that a tour company van drove through a hotel wall around 2:30am last night! Much to the surprise of the ladies staying in one of the suites! It gets better! Luckily, no one was hurt, the driver rolled down the window, said 'I'm sorry', backed out and drove away!! Ah, only in Churchill...

Yes, it is that week of' 'bear season' where people's minds start breaking down after three weeks of working seven days a week and our judgement gets a little skewed. We used to call it 'buggy rage'. There have been fist fights, yelling matches and high school name calling, all of it out of sight of the clients. And, of course, the occasional joy ride.

This year is a strange year for me. Life at the dog yard is a pleasant change from the usual bear season chaos and really pretty rewarding. Somehow, instead of self-destructing during bear season, I feel more productive by the day and have even started working on my newest book! Maybe life after buggies is okay. Yesterday, I drove a team of dogs for the first time in years. As they say, the first one is free...

Polar Bear Blog - You Shot My Paw - October 25th, 2006

So, I shot my first bear last night. It was pretty intense. Around 2:30am when Milo raced outside and started barking. A subadult polar bear was right beside out Toyota and our house - in possibly, the worst spot - I couldn't get out the door or to the truck or even take a shot at him around the corner.

Milo and MoonUnit were barking and jumping at him and he was whirling and twirling around, hissing and puffing and taking swipes at them. It was pretty intense.

Finally, I knocked out our screen window and shot some cracker shells with no effect and then some slugs into the ground in front of him, kicking gravel into his face. To this, he only retreated a few steps and then returned to his original spot and his original battle with my mutts.

I was getting pretty concerned about the fate of my dogs and was kind of out of options to deal with this polar bear. So, I shot him in the toe. Bears hate that (although not as much as getting shot in the head...).

He took off running, leaving a little drop of blood here and there (so I must have just grazed his foot). I hopped into the Toyota and Milo and MoonUnit escorted him out of our little patch of suburbia.

Returning home, I found what he had been protecting, a garbage bag full of laundry. This is a bear that must have found garbage in the back of a truck and was just looking for black bags of refuse, whether there was any smell or not. Hopefully, we changed his mind a bit.

Polar Bear Blog - Northern Lights, Finally! - October 24th, 2006

Amazing northern lights around midnight/1:00 last night, like someone swirled their finger around the ionosphere. Bright green and spreading across the sky, a very nice treat for visitors to Churchill.

From 1957-81, the Churchill Research Rocket Range conducted research into the aurora borealis and the ionosphere, in fact the bulk of our knowledge about northern lights was discovered right up here. They launched sounding rockets and exploded different compounds, chemicals and whatever in an attempt to study and control the effects of the northern lights - part of our cold war conspiracy plots: different altitudes of aurora interfere with radio transmissions, we thought that if we could create or negate aurora then we could jam the russians' communications and punch holes in the aurora for our own.

So, they blew this stuff up in the sky for years and years and then finally, I guess they ran out of ideas and decided to try water. The final project in Churchill was called Project WaterHole and sent a rocket full of water up into the atmosphere where it exploded and promptly knocked a hole in the aurora. And then they shut the range down.

Polar Bear Blog - Clear Skies and Seaweed Pies - October 23rd, 2006

I stepped out the door this morning and what a great sight - stars! The big dipper hung low and large in the sky. Called Tuktu (Caribou) by the Inuit, the dipper dominates the northern skies, circling around the north star.

Polar Bear Blog - Silence of the Boreal Chorus Frogs - October 22nd, 2006

'Can You Hear the Screaming of the Frogs, Clarice?' Sorry for the lame Anthony Hopkins reference but I heard a frog screaming or at least something yesterday. For my afternoon coffee break, I decided to try and track that gigantic bear and see where exactly he went and brush up on my near non-existent bush skills.

Anyways, my dogs were with me and they sometimes find an errant lemming and try to flush it out of its hiding spot. So, they were stomping away, cocking their hears and nosing around and I heard a high-pitched yelping - what I thought was a lemming. I figured I would save the little critter so I shooed my mutts away and went over. Instead, I found a disgruntled boreal chorus frog (one of our two frog species), scared out of its wits, emitting this high-pitched squeal and making a mad dash for cover. Unfortunately, broeal chorus frogs freeze solid for the winter. Up until that point, however, their system slows down and so does their ability to move, so his mad dash was more like a slow-motion six million dollar frog.

Polar Bear Blog - Big Weekend - October 22nd, 2006

Squeezing in an update here, it has been a big weekend. Around 9:30 on Friday night, Milo started barking. He onlys barks when bears are around but usually he starts this wild, continuous and confrontational barking. This time, it was a bit sporadic... and, as I soon realized, was dog language for 'holy cow'.

Yes, there was a bear but this bear was one of the biggest bears I have ever seen. I opened the door and just saw this white blob walking straight for my house. Milo was barking and kind of glancing back going 'will you get the friggin gun already?!?'

So I did. And he turned and ran and we chased him with the Toyota. Everything was going fine until we hit the edge of the lake. Apparently our visitor does not like getting wet so he just stopped and lay down by my neighbour, Wally's, cabin. We barked and shot and honked and revved and yelled and he did nothing except give us the odd dirty look.

Finally, I called Milo and MoonUnit off and took them home and then went back to scare him off (I was not about to go to sleep with a 1500lb bear half a block from my house) and take a picture (mostly, because my mom does not believe half the stories I write in this blog and I needed proof of this one).

Of course, this leads me to my commercial endorsement of the day. The Polar Bear Blog officially endorses TruFlare Bear Scare Flares available at S.I.R. in Winnipeg. When all else had failed, I pulled out my trusty pen launcher and shot an itty-bitty bear flare at him. There was a flash and then a puff of smoke and the bear was gone!

I am not saying that I vapourized the bear but he definitely got the message and left, possibly with some singed eyebrows (not that bears have eyebrows). When the smoke had cleared, I measured his paw prints - they were two hands long or about 12-13" in diameter. That's a big bear and a great way to spend a Friday night.

Polar Bear Blog - Warmest Blizzard in the North - October 20th, 2006

Well, we are the 'hotspot' in northern Manitoba today - too bad it feels like -20 outside. Gusting winds and blowing snow are making this a good day to either watch bears or catch up on paperwork, the latter of which, I am afraid, is my fate today.

Stopped and had a nice moment with an arctic fox on my way into town. Still showing a touch of grey under its thick white coat, it was scurrying along the coast, desperately trying to run in a straight line as the weight of his tail and the strength of the wind constantly pushed him sideways.

He was proably searching for lemmings that are probably not there anymore. The most common lemming around Churchill is the Richardson's collared lemming, a mouse with a stubby tail, that lives underneath the snow, in the sedges and in the kelp. This summer, it really looked like we were back on the upswing of the local lemming population. Considering lemming wallow at the bottom of the food chain, this is a good sign for next year's wildlife sightings.

However, this last winter storm came just after a full moon, the north winds combined with extreme high tides. This brought the Bay about 100' farther inland than usual and washed away whatever was in its path, including seaweed beds and clumps of lyme grass; prime lemming habitat. It is quite likely that much of the lemming population was wiped out in one week of stormy weather.

Of course, my arctic fox should survive. They eat eggs and baby birds in the summer and scavenge from people and bears in the winter. Arctic foxes will actually follow polar bears out on the ice and steal whatever seal meat or fat is leftover. Even in the heart of winter, foxes are adept survivors. In the worst blizzards, they curl up, push their nose under their tail and wait it out. Their fur is so thick that they do not even start shivering until -70C or so. Of course, life is always complicated and that same fur that protects them from Mother Nature's moods is also quite popular with local trappers.

Polar Bear Blog - Dog, Bear, Lard - October 19th, 2006

Spent the day working with Wapusk Adventures. They are a local dogsledding company and the folks that started up the Hudson Bay Quest dog sled race up here. Feels really good to be back around sled dogs again, even if it was in the midst of mud and slush and snow.

They have a nice kennel nestled in the trees, gray jays flit about stealing crumbs of bannock while tourist sip hot chocolate. I myself was handling dogs and generally helping out. Carmen, my girlfriend, is the 'camp girl' serving hot chocolate and entertaining tour groups. Its a living.

Sled dogs are highly addictive and one that I have been trying to stay away from. I think its something about the breadth and depth of personalities when a lot of dogs are together. They all have unique styles, quirks and triggers but the kennel itself is kind of like on big dog, especially when they decide to howl, kind of being in a stadium when the 'wave' starts. Still, it is good to be back with dogs.

Amidst the lovely, neurotic day (we really went through about ten weather systems today - from blizzard to pseudo-chinook), you could hear Polar Bear Alert's gun shots in the not-so-distance so someone must have been ambling towards town.

There are starting to be a few polar bears in town now, one broke into the Town's garbage/recycling storage unit two nights ago. There is a big cage at the edge of town where people leave their garbage when L5 is closed. Someone left two pails of lard there and when lard is involved, bear proof cages are not so bear proof anymore. So for those of you coming up to Churchill, here's a tip: if you want to see bears, bring lard, just don't walk around town with it.