A Journal, with Pictures

This is our first day and we have a full day of tour­ing around. After break­fast we load up the lazy Bear bus and met our guide Ger­ald. In the morn­ing we are going to scope out the area and maybe see a bear. So we head out in the lazy Bear school bus and sure enough we see a bear. I think. it could be a white rock, but through my 400 MM lens, yes its a Polar Bear. We then vis­it the site of a crash of a C‑46 and then learn about the ” the bear prob­lem”. Polar bears come into town and have to be trapped and incar­ser­at­ed. We vis­it the bear pri­sion, but this is a slow peri­od so no bears in cap­tiv­i­ty, although some of our group try to solve that prob­lem. It’ s inter­est­ing and fun morning.

 

After lunch we board the Lazy Bear boat to vis­it Fort Prince of Wales on the oth­er side of the riv­er, then to look for bears and whales. We split into two groups and we vis­it the Fort first. Our guide is a local woman named Judd. Judd real­ly knows her ecol­o­gy and his­to­ry but her dread locks, that are tied into a knot to keep them from drag­ging on the gound, adds a lit­tle some­thing spe­cial to her per­sona. The Fort was one of the Hud­son Bay Com­pa­nies main trad­ing posts and it took almost 40 years to build. The French cap­tured it and dis­abled it in a day, took the com­man­der and all the furs back to France. The Indi­an chielf who was the link to the fur trade is said to have com­mit­ted sui­cide. Bad day at Churchill. Very inter­est­ing history.

Now its time to look for bears and whales so we head back to the boat and out onto the riv­er. We spot a moth­er and cub and get to observe them as they hang out and then when they get warm take a swim.

The bear sight­ing was the high­light of the day, but we see Bel­u­gas in the riv­er on our way in, but the big day for Bel­u­gas is ahead, so its time for a lit­tle COPA social activ­i­ty. Strange how that works, get some COPA mem­bers togeth­er and a par­ty breaks out. We end­ed up enjoy­ing the fine weath­er and hav­ing a glass of wine or two right in front of the lodge. Then it was off to dinner.