The WWF Arctic Global Polar Bear specialist, Geoff York, is on a field trip in Churchill on the Hudson Bay, observing and blogging about polar bears. Below is the eighth blog from our ‘eyes and ears on the tundra’. Read more blogs by Geoff York.
By Geoff York
Wagons ho! It’s moving day and the morning starts a good hour earlier. By 7 AM we are fed and aboard our tour buggies. It’s still dark as we head out on the tundra hoping for that perfect sunrise bear. And as luck would have it – we find him …
Meanwhile, back at the Lodge, FNA has brought in extra staff to prepare the cars for moving and break camp. It’s quite the logistic feat as it will be a long and very bumpy ride. The cars are battened down much like a sailing ship preparing for rough seas. This is truly one of the last such caravan trips in the Arctic. We hitch onto the lounge car and wait for the rest of the “train” to assemble. By mid morning, we are heading east along the shore of Hudson Bay. The landscape is a vast and very shallow tidal flat- ice, rock, and snow. Looking back on our vehicles, one quickly gets the sense of being in a sci-fi movie- crossing a foreign landscape in space buggies. We are headed far beyond the area most visitors see, and are truly on our own.
It will take 5 hours to make Cape Churchill and by the time camp is reset we have been inside our Buggies for nearly 11 hours straight. This is adventure travelling and my entire group has enjoyed every minute. We are all happy to get back on board the lodge and share a warm meal and climb into our bunks!
