Churchill, located on the shores of Hudson Bay in Manitoba Province, Canada, is a very special place. In the late fall, the largest number of polar bears anywhere congregates very near town waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze. Unlike all other bears, polar bears hunt and breed during the winter and rest during the summer. Seals, their their primary source of food, can only be hunted from the ice.... seals create and maintain holes in the ice through which they surface to breathe. Polar bears know all this and wait patiently at the side of the breathing holes for a seal to pop up. Why do bears gather in Churchill? Because that's where the Churchill River flows into Hudson Bay. The mix of fresh river water and salty bay water freezes sooner than pure salt water so the bears can get a head start on the annual hunt.
In the summer when the ice pack breaks up, the bears are forced to come to shore. For the next many months they go into "walking hibernation", not feeding again until the fall freeze. It doesn't take much insight to see how climate change affects the bears. Warmer weather means shorter feeding seasons, which means thinner bears, which ultimately means fewer bears. Polar bears are merely the adororable poster children for the consequences of a warming climate.
Churchill hosts another of nature's spectacles in the summer months. Some 3500 beluga whales seek the safe, warm (relativly speaking) refuge of the Churchill River to feed and raise their families. What an incredible site. If you're really lucky, you might be in a boat surrounded by a pod of beluga whales while watching polar bears come in off the ice. We had that good fortune twice in 5 days.
One of the reasons Churchill remains a true outpost is its remoteness. There are no roads leading into Churchill. It's a long, long way to town and there are only 2 ways to get there: an uncomfortable, unpredictable 2-day train ride from Winnepeg; or a 2-hour flight from Winnepeg on the only carrier serving the town. For both the fall and summer trips, we opted for the plane. It gave me a new appreciation for monopoly pricing power.