Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness: Visiting the polar bears

Like the Newfoundland trip, I'm thinking about the blog, and a book. I wasn't sure how many bear photos I'd get out of the trip. Linda and I were joking that while we've done several whale watching tours, we've never seen a whale from a boat. But the odds are good to see a bear around Churchill before the bay freezes up. The bears are hanging around, waiting for freeze up so they can get out on the ice and hunt seals.

We ended up having a great bear day! There are a ton of photos for the blog, so you'll get the highlights, the inaugural polar bear selection for the Of the Day feature, and a book teaser. Yes, I'm going to do a book about the trip, featuring as many photos of bears as I can fit in. It'll be the big landscape size, but not a layflat, so it will be about the price of other coffee table books. I'm not sure how many photos and pages will be involved, but I'd like to keep the price at about $70 plus shipping to me. If you see the photos below, and want a book of more photos, let me know ASAP. Like, this week. I want to get the order in and take advantage of a discount.

This was a one day trip. Here's the itinerary. Board the aircraft at 5:45am. Depart Calgary 6:45. Take a bus from Churchill airport out to the tundra buggy base. Tundra buggy out to the bear's waiting grounds for photos and lunch, then back to base. Then bus back to town for a really good banquet style dinner. Fly back to Calgary, and at this point I was beyond caring what time it was. I haven't had such an informal check in since my days flying the Amoco corporate airplane. W got back into Calgary about 11pm, then dodged busy traffic and road construction to get home. Yes, it was a long, long day. Yes, most people slept on the plane, including us.

YES IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!!

Classic Canadian Tours did the tour, and it was organized and planned out from A to Z. We're already thinking about our next tour with them. Check them out here.

1. Our first bear. We had someone in the buggy that usually spotted bears before the driver or naturalist did. Granted, the driver has to keep his eyes on the "road". Even being told where the bear was I often couldn't spot it for a moment. I'd make a lousy hunter gatherer, and probably bear guard isn't the best choice as my next career.

2. The next bear, snuggled into some grass, mostly snoozing.

3. Snoozing using a rock for a pillow. Remember this bear, there's a story about him.

4. Do you see the bear? I didn't for a while. This is with the lens at 200mm so consider that you're seeing it with 4x zoom or so over just your eyeballs.

5. This one padded across the ice directly towards us. Gave us this look, then walked through the brush onto the road. We were stopped for lunch when all this happened.

6. After emerging from the brush it walked directly behind the next tundra buggy. It might have rubbed up against the vehicle to scratch, because it moved a bit. Or maybe all the people inside were scrambling for a better view.

7. From there it strolled off the road and sat down at this rock. It's attitude was totally, I'm read to order, waiter.

8. Then this bear sauntered across some ice, through the scrub brush at the side of the road, posed a bit, and then walked right past the back of our tundra buggy.

9. I'm looking almost straight down at the bear. Where most of the photos are with the lens set for as much distance as it could do (200mm), this is almost as close as it can focus.

10. From there it strolled along, knowing perfectly well this other bear was there. Remember him from photo 3? Our naturalist was gushing with the possibility of doing a play by play analysis and colour commentary about the bears sparring.

11. Just another bear strolling along.

12. This bear poked it's nose up to watch us go by. I think they're curious about us, but have figured out we're not going to hurt them, or feed them, and they can't get at us. Or maybe they can, but the caloric payoff isn't worth the effort.

There's lots more photos, especially about the bear meetup, including a ptarmigan, some landscapes, and some background stuff. I was thinking about taking a film camera, but I'm glad I didn't. There are some lovely photos to be had, if only they would allow the photographer off the buggy and work the compositions. That's a quick route to becoming dinner. I can easily believe a bear could creep up on a human unless they were keeping a careful eye out.

I was astonished at how hard the bears are to see, even fairly close. They blend into the landscape surprisingly well, and I'm not talking white fur on white snow. It's the yellowish fur against yellowish rocks that are really difficult.

So like I said, more photos will be showing up in the of the day section. If you can't wait and want some of the stories that go with them, let me know you're interested in the book. Email me at loungecatproductions at gmail dot com. Same if you've come here for the polar bear photos, and want to get a notification of when I blog so you get more of what I post.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

One last Driftwood (NL)

There were some nice chunks of driftwook along Hudson's Bay, but alas, they weren't about to stop and let me work the scene. I'm pretty sure I'd have been used for polar bear bait had I suggested any such thing.