A Good Hare Day!

Monday, October 9, 2017

We woke up to more rain showers and lots of wind.  The temperature is 34 degrees, but we are thankful to be here—today is Canada’s Thanksgiving Day!  Today was also our first day to venture out in a Tundra Buggy.  This huge vehicle travels across the tundra…over rocks, and through water covered roads, into the Wildlife Management Area to see polar bears and other wildlife.  As we boarded and unloaded from the tundra buggy, there was a guard standing by to protect us in case of a runaway bear! 

Our first sighting was an Artic Hare. This beautiful animal is snow white, with dark black eyes and black tipped ears.  It is a big bunny…about 14 pounds (that’s bigger than Spot!)  By the end of the day we had seen five of these creatures, and our guide Luke said it was a record for him in one day!  It was a good hare day! 

Riding in the tundra buggy, all eyes were scanning the landscape for signs of wildlife.  If anyone sees something, they yell out, and our guide stops the buggy and everyone rushes to the window with binoculars—it’s kind of funny to watch.  Often, the sighting would be a “polar rock” (false alarm) so we continued on.   To everyone’s delight, we saw our first bear early in the day.  We named it Sydney.  We spent quite a bit of time just watching him raise his head to look at us.  I’m sure he was thinking how silly we all looked straining to get a picture of him.  He wandered down into the willows, and we travelled further down the road and saw him on the other side (literally).  What a thrill to see these animals in their natural environment.         I was struck by the barrenness of the tundra landscape.  Lots of rocks, water, brush and kelp deposited from the rising and falling tides.  In the distance you could always see the shoreline of the Hudson Bay and its waves rolling in. The trails were so bumpy that one in our group had a fitbit that registered 8,000 steps while sitting in her seat!    Jim got to try his hand at driving the tundra buggy and we all survived. 

We saw many foxes..arctic fox, silver fox, cross fox; and we enjoyed watching them run around chasing whatever they were finding in the brush around us.

There were plenty of other sights along the tundra…check out this tundra lodge, where you can stay for as long as 10 days.   The lodge is pulled out to “Polar Bear Point”, about 25 miles from town to give guests the opportunity to really be in the wild with the animals.  It is supposed to be a great spot for viewing the northern lights too.   We thought we were done seeing animals but had a surprise sighting on the way back…a momma bear and two cubs nestled in the rocks.  We could see more through the binoculars than the camera lens, but how exciting.  The guide mentioned it was unusual to see a mother bear this close to the bay, so we were lucky to be able to enjoy the view.  In talking to others staying at the hotel, they have been here for 4 days and haven’t seen one polar bear, so we consider our day not only a good hare day, but an overall success!  

We closed out the evening with a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, and a talk by Myrtle a native Cree who has lived in Churchill for 62 years.  She shared stories of growing up, and her craft of sculpting caribou hide.   Whew…a long, but fun day!