When you smell like a dog on board a people-crammed jet
Polar Bear Capitol of the World
On Sunday, my working schedule changed and my travel plan to visit my brother in Utah went out of the window. On Monday, I tried to think of some other traveling alternatives, and on Tuesday October 28, I boarded a plane bound for Churchill, Manitoba.
Churchill, the Polar Bear Capitol of the World, is just a small town of about 950 people accessible only by air or, on some days, by train. Every year in October and November however, the population of this little remote place increases dramatically. The polar bears become “interested” in the area and start to “gather” around Churchill to impatiently wait for Hudson Bay to freeze. The Bay freezes first at this location and the animals seem to know it. They are hungry and eager to get on the ice to hunt seals. Only then, the season of hunger will be finally over for them.
You can imagine the very few accommodation facilities fill up extremely quickly at this time of the year. As a matter of fact, people book up to a year in advance! And here I am, ready to go “tomorrow!”
When I called up a B&B in Churchill, the lady thought I was booking for the next year! “No mam, I was thinking about tomorrow!” She laughed and said: “Only our dog-yard tent, ten miles out of town, is available …” “Perfect!”, I replied enthusiastically and went off to explore the famous Canadian North full of polar bears…
As a tourist, I got lucky; I saw over a dozen of polar bears, some of them sparring, a few ptarmigans and arctic hears, one red fox hiding in the bush, a snowy owl up close and personal, and sled dogs running with “my” sled. I “lived through” an arctic blizzard, I tasted the atmosphere of Halloween in Churchill, and I witnessed hours of incredible Northern lights! Not bad for an arctic-green guy, eh?
My add-hoc trip turned out to be much more than just un’fur’gettable.
“When you smell strongly like a dog on board a people-crammed jet and you feel nothing but proud of it, you know that life is really good!”
