I joined Glenn and Michele last week on another segment of their extended, six-month travels (Glenn and Michele’s Most Excellent Adventure™) – this time flying up to Churchill, Canada, to stay at a small remote lodge along the Hudson Bay and go out on guided walks to see and hug polar bears! Well, not so much hugging really. (But they do look so huggable!)
We stayed three nights at Dymond Lake Lodge, one of three small “eco-lodges” operated by Churchill Wild, looking for polar bears and other wildlife during the day and enjoying the wonderful meals and the stars and the aurora borealis at night. We lucked out with weather. At this time of year we should have encountered daytime highs no greater than the teens or single digits (in Fahrenheit) even before any wind chill (as in seriously cold, the primary reason Darlene didn’t join us), but we lucked out with temps way up in the mid-20’s! Yes, below freezing, but really relatively balmy! Just ask the polar bears!
Speaking of which, we were able to see lots of bears and even watch an unusual encounter between two different mama bears and their cubs. The guides are very good at approaching and reading the bears’ behavior and working to keep the experience safe for everyone, including the bears.
After several amazing days of walking out amongst the bears, we returned to Churchill for an afternoon of dog-sledding with Bluesky Expeditions and then a full day on an arctic tundra safari with Frontiers North Adventures in one of their massive custom-built “tundra buggies”.
Click through for the full gallery of photos and video clips from the trip:
Here’s a separate gallery of pictures from just the dog sledding excursion.
Michele wrote a great detailed post about our Churchill trip in her blog: