Most visitors to Churchill, Manitoba, even in the heat of summer, hope to get a glimpse of a polar bear.
But not the Carrolls - a family from Texas that Audrey and I met on the train from Thompson.
The Carrolls were seated across the aisle from the two of us, their seats facing each other. They were grandmother Marge, her son Michael, daughter-in-law Stephanie, and their young adult son Sean (and I hope I didn't misspell these names too badly!).
From what I understood, they had driven all the way from Arlington, Texas, to Thompson so they could take the train to where they could view beluga whales in the wild. I recall perhaps one or more of them disliked flying, and since flights into Churchill are pretty expensive anyways, why not road trip it?
Michael and Stephanie were pretty close in age to Audrey and I, and all the Carrolls were extremely nice people. Since Audrey and I had made this rail pilgrimage on four previous occasions, we were only too happy to outline what to expect, how the reclining seats worked and how to get the conductor to rotate one of their seat pairs to give them a bit more leg room.
I learned that Marge had been the impetus for the trip, and that seeing beluga whales in their natural environment had been on her bucket list for years. I was astonished, stating how amazing it was that they had (effectively) travelled from one of the largest non-oceanic water bodies in North America (the Gulf of Mexico) to the other (Hudson Bay) to witness such a whimsical animal. That is nearly 1800 miles! At any rate, we exchanged phone numbers so that if they needed anything or had any other questions once in town, we could try to help.
Our train pulled into Churchill around 10:30 Tuesday morning, and the Carrolls made their way to the Seaport Hotel - conveniently, the same place their bus for the beluga zodiac tour would pick them up the next day, before catching the train back Thursday evening. Meanwhile, my cousin Parker picked us up and brought us to his house before he boarded the southbound train that very same evening, as he was flying to meet his girlfriend in Costa Rica the next day.
In addition to letting us stay in the house he had recently remodeled, Parker had also graciously left us the use of a vehicle, which gave me an idea. I texted Stephanie and asked if they wanted a quick drive around Churchill the next day, to see some of the attractions you can't reach on foot. She quickly agreed and we arranged to meet up late the next morning.
Sean elected to stay home, but when I got to the Seaport, the other three were raring to go, so I drove them past the port to Cape Merry (the blue "1") on the map.
This is a gun battery intended to help defend the harbour along with the imposing Fort Prince of Wales (5) across the Churchill River. There is also a memorial cairn for Jens Munk, the Danish explorer who came here seeking the Northwest Passage in 1619, but returned home with only two other members of his 64-man crew after a brutal winter on the shores of Hudson Bay.
But we were there for the belugas, because from the battery you can not only see them clearly in the river, you are close enough to hear them too.
The Carrolls at Cape Merry
Marge was thrilled, snapping pictures with her 3 or 400mm lens and recording some video. Michael and I walked out to the cairn and I discovered he was also quite a Rush fan, which I found delightful.
Stephanie and Marge must have spent 40 minutes entranced by the frolicking cetaceans, but there was more to see, and of course, a closer encounter with them scheduled for later that day. We drove out to the Churchill Northern Studies Centre and the old rocket range, driving past the rusting hulk of the MV Ithaca just offshore, and also made our way over to see Miss Piggy, the wreck of a C-47 cargo plane.
And it was somewhere on that drive that Marge told me the story that explained precisely why she was so fascinated by beluga whales, and I apologize for any details I have incorrect here.
Many years ago, the family had visited Sea World in San Antonio. Fascinated by the white whales even then, they had either wandered into or stayed in the amphitheatre while one of the belugas was swimming, and he began interacting with them. Marge had apparently been encouraging him to spit water out of his tank and into the seating area, when one of the trainers came by to explain they really shouldn't be there. But as sometimes happens, they ended up chatting him up, learned this particular male whale's name was Beethoven, and I believe Stephanie ended up onstage or helping with the next performance.
Years later at a different aquarium (I want to say Chicago?), Marge was looking at belugas through an underwater window. One of them was 'standing' nearly vertically in the water, looking directly through the glass at Marge, his fins almost looking like they could be waving at her.
Marge asked a trainer if the whale was able to see her, and when she saw which whale it was, she said, "oh yeah, Beethoven? He's a lover, that one."
It turns out that being a male beluga capable of breeding while in captivity placed Beethoven in high demand, and Marge encountered him a third time at yet another facility elsewhere in the U.S.
Now, could you prove that this highly intelligent sea mammal could not only see this lady from Texas, but also remember and recognize her? Of course not. But Marge thinks he could and I believe Marge, so as far as I am concerned that settles it.
All the Carrolls were very grateful for a chance to get a little ways out of town and see some of the surrounding area and thanked me profusely when I dropped tham back off at their hotel, but in truth, I was just returning some of the enormous privilege of having been taken to all of those places (and more!) on my previous visits. I appreciated a small chance to pay it forward.
The next day, the four of us made our way down to the Seaport for our own beluga excursion, and saw the family from Texas sitting outside as they waited for the train to arrive from Thompson so they could board it. They'd had a wonderful time on their own zodiac tour the day before, but again made sure to thank me for showing them the other sights.
I think there is a pretty good chance they may come back some time in the future to take the Tundra Buggy tour and perhaps see Churchill's main animal attraction as well, but helping someone scratch an experience off their bucket list after such a long journey was tremendously gratifying!
On our last day in Churchill, Audrey and I went beachcombing for the first time.
It has nothing to do with the legendary CBC program of the same name, and simply involves finding a piece of coastline and looking for small ‘treasures’ among the gravel, sand and stones. Typically nothing of value, but colourful stones, occasional fossils and bits of sea glass or broken porcelain and pottery.
This is something Glory has done with Belinda since she worked up here in 2020, and Belinda kindly brought us along to her prized spot out by Cape Merry.
It is not a long walk from the gravel road to the beach, but not without obstacles; the soft soggy terrain can leave you with a soaker if you aren’t careful, and while there are often large rocks or boulders to step on, not all of them are set squarely on the ground (or atop other stones).
With every step, I pictured myself slipping and either wrenching an ankle or breaking a leg. Knowing that the four ladies I was with would be incapable of carrying me out really gave me pause. In fact, I figured it might take a helicopter and bear sling to extract me from the broken terrain, which would surely play havoc with our 7:30 train departure!
By the time we reached the beach, my neck and shoulders were sore with stress, but this was quickly forgotten as we all turned our attention back to the ground. I quickly saw the therapeutic element to this activity, as my thoughts swiftly migrated away from aches and train schedules and words and refocused almost exclusively on colors, shapes and textures. Paying that much attention to the ground provided a very direct link to my inner child.
Fenya found a small fossil almost immediately, and then a glass marble. Belinda and Glory found marbles fairly quickly as well. “What makes them stand out from the ground? “ I asked, “the color, the translucence or the shape?” The roundness, two people answered almost simultaneously.
Glory pointed out a marble close to my foot, and I found another one just under edge of some low foliage - the roundness is definitely what distinguished it from the gravel and sand around it.
The next hour passed surprisingly quickly. I collected some bits of sea glass in a range of colours and a couple of bottle fragments (including a brown bottle bottom from a distillery in Glasgow), but also a few stones, a piece of bone, some driftwood, and some porcelain fragments.
My most interesting piece was a verdigris-covered valve handle of indeterminate age, but the others found a doll’s hand, piece of animal vertebrae, and a bottle with a partial logo for the Arctic Beverage Company, which I’d never heard of.
We found a shorter route back to the road, but it was also wetter, making our socks a bit damp, but far less treacherous footing.
Back home, the girls and Audrey and I packed our treasures into Ziplocs so they could all be muled home on our train. With any luck we will get a chance to build them into some shadow box collages with resin, and have a permanent reminder of our beachcombing experience on the edge of Hudson’s Bay.
There is very little to keep us coming back to Churchill, and yet we do.
This was the fourth visit for Audrey and I, and I am confident we will go back again. But why?
Part of it is that we have family up there who also happen to be great, great people. I know another part of it is bringing someone new to experience Churchill, like Fenya's boyfriend Bobby.
The biggest reason though might be that visiting Churchill feels a little less like a vacation and just a bit more akin to an adventure.
It is a remote northern town of less than 700 souls, inaccessible by roads - you can arrive by plane, train or (theoretically) boat. Despite its diminutive size, Churchill can often be spied on world maps (including the CIA World Map). Perhaps this is due to its deepwater port, or perhaps just because it is an area of the map that looks better with a name in it. Either way, it is the very edge of our nation and a surprisingly accessible bit of peri-frontier.
The town began to pivot to eco-tourism years ago, and not a moment too soon, since OmniTRAX closed the port in 2016. People come here during the summer to see belugas and all manner of birds including arctic terns and bald eagles.
But obviously the big draw is the polar bears.
(For better bear pictures please check out my 2013 post!)
It is important to note though, that these massive ursines are not there for the tourists, they are there for themselves, impatiently waiting for sea ice to form on Hudson's Bay so they can get back to the ice floes and start eating seals. They endure increasingly hot and increasingly lengthy summers in a state of waking hibernation, and will occasionally shamble into the town looking for food.
Such incursions are not regular or everyday occurrences to be sure, but the possibility of an apex predator wandering down the street at any given moment is everpresent. We were in Churchill for five days, and on two of those days we could hear the honking of truck horns and the telltale sounds of cracker shells and shotgun blasts as conservation officers dissuaded ursus maritimus from venturing further into the town.
Two nights ago, Fenya messaged us to say that she had spied a bear from the living room window of the house we had stayed in while visiting her a week prior.
The juxtaposition of shopping for t-shirts or using a debit card to buy pizza to eat on the train in a place where humans are not the top of the food chain in Churchill is absolutely mind-boggling to me.
In light of this, the other factors fade in comparison, even the weather. Our boat trip to Prince of Wales Fort was cancelled due to 70 km\h winds gusting to 90, so we went out into this 7 degree Celsius maelstrom ("feels like 2 degrees") to see it for ourselves. And watching the waves batter the beach or the rocks at Cape Merry was impressive, and maybe even intimidating, but we never stopped looking for bears.
Someday I would love to go work a summer and bear season in Churchill, but in my heart of hearts I know it would be irresponsible for me to live there. I lack the surety and the self-reliance of most Churchillians, and I am confident my lack of focus would result in my daydreaming on my way to work and ending up as an entree for Canada's largest carnivore.
But the people who live in Churchill are not just surviving there, but thriving. They organized an online variety show to help people deal with COVID isolation, and we watched in order to hear Fenya sing, but stayed to watch people share themselves in the most earnest manner imaginable.
And a massive art project -SeaWalls Churchill - launched just before the rail line was washed out in 2017 has transformed many of the bleak walls around Churchill into bold statements about both ecology and northern isolation. Like all large-scale art installations, they diminish when photographed, but remain a brilliant testimony to the uniqueness of this place.
There is a documentary about the SeaWalls Churchill project you can watch courtesy of the CBC - I haven't checked it out yet, but the trailer certainly looks compelling.
Could you perhaps replicate the experience by installing a number of cages within an art gallery containing bears, wolves and wolverines and then equipping them with random time-release locks? Possibly, but even if you could, it would feel too contrived to be a true adventure and not just a stunt.
Every year the winters get shorter and the bear counts are beginning to drop. Who knows how much longer Churchill will remain the "Polar Bear Capital of the World"? When anyone asks me about Churchill, I encourage them to visit there if it is at all possible, and the sooner the better. Everyone we have brought up there would like to return, if possible.
In my heart, I know we will be back. I hope it is before too long, and I hope we bring more new people to experience this amazing place where convenience and adventure jostle for priority.
As mentioned previously, Glory has been working in Churchill, Manitoba, at the restaurant run by my cousin's wife, Belinda, since early July. She is having a grand old time and has only been homesick on a handful of occasions. The rest of the time she has been paddleboarding with beluga whales on multiple occasions, spotting a polar bear mother and cub while on a Zodiac on the Churchill River, and having mad, occasionally concerning adventures with Belinda. (Her boss, in case that wasn't clear.)
On our video chat 2-3 weeks ago, we noticed something on Glory's arm and inquired about it. Sure enough, it was a tattoo, her first, that she had gotten done just a few days earlier.
She told us how the whole thing had come about, and it was a cute yarn so I asked if I could blog about it. When she agreed, I asked her to send me her pictures and a timeline, but her write-up was so good and so evocative of her voice (which I miss even though we have protracted video chats about once a week), that I thought I would just apply a few gentle edits and let her tell it in her own words.
Saturday September 20 Belinda invited me to a small bonfire at the beach with her friends. While at the fire, the topic of me wanting to get a Churchill tattoo came up. I told her I was thinking a whale tail would be nice because I’ve been whale watching on both coasts and have always loved all whales and loved all of my experiences with them - crazy zodiac drivers, singing with a famous Newfie, paddleboarding with Belugas, and so on.
Belinda was immediately like "YES." Then somehow we decided that we should get matching ones (I’m not entirely sure how this came to be but it did). She told me about this guy Dan who is an aspiring tattoo artist in town and said she would contact him to get them done!
That night after the fire I looked on Google for simple whale tail line drawings and screenshotted three different ones and sent them to her. She said she didn’t like the second one and I needed to choose between the first and the third. I chose the third but still wasn't sure when or even if this would be happening.
Sunday September 21 I went berry picking with Belinda and her friend Erin, and while we were together Belinda just casually says “oh yeah, we’re getting tattooed on Tuesday.”
I was like, "This Tuesday? I’m not ready!" (Spoiler alert: I was fine.) I had drawn the tail on my wrist with a pen to see if I would like it there and I became a little obsessed with it.
Wednesday September 23 Belinda had some meetings so we had to change our tattoo date to Wednesday night. I arrived at her house and there was music playing and Dan was setting up all his gear on her coffee table in the living room. Belinda gave me a shot and a cocktail and then we sat down and decided for me to go first. I was pretty nervous mostly because I had no idea what to expect for pain/sensation but as soon as he started I was like, okay this isn’t bad at all. I didn't even really need the wooden spoon she had given me to bite down on!
Certain spots definitely made me cringe at times but I can see how people get sort of addicted to the feeling. Before I knew it I had my first tattoo!
Then Belinda got hers and we hung out for a bit and then I went home. It felt kind of anti-climactic really because it was all so casual. But I love it so, so, so much! And I am so happy I went through with it and got it done, and that I got it done with her here in Churchill.
I turned off the truck’s ignition, slumped back into my seat and looked across at Audrey apologetically. “All right,” I said, “a no-bullshit assessment of our current situation sounds something like this: despite the four-wheel-drive and snow tires, we are completely stuck, in a snow and slush-filled ditch almost a kilometer from the nearest road, 5 klicks from the nearest warm building, and 15 from Churchill.
“We are nowhere near a cell tower and have no radio, and told no one where we were going. It is not currently snowing, but the wind is a brisk 50-60 knots coming in off the Hudson’s Bay, my shoes are filled with slushy water, and my pants are saturated from the knees down.
“Oh, and we are in precisely the same spot we saw two adult male polar bears 24 hours ago.” I paused and reflected briefly, before asking, “Did I leave anything out?”
Audrey pursed her lips and looked at the dashboard clock.
“Well, we are supposed to be at the airport in about 3 hours…”
I nodded, “Ah, yes; what’s a third act without a ticking clock?”
Neither of us have a MENSA card or anything, but I don't think too many people would characterize Audrey or myself as stupid or reckless people. So how in the hell had we ended up in this predicament?
[FLASHBACK TO 25 HOURS PRIOR]
With some time to kill the previous afternoon before we headed to the Pub for dinner and Fenya’s birthday, Parker and Belinda had lent us their truck, a sturdy Ford half-ton with proper four wheel drive and good winter tires. The loan was conditional on our giving one of their staffers, Sam, a lift to the Churchill Northern Studies Centre so she could grab a sweatshirt she needed as a gift.
I should explain that in addition to providing lodging and lab space for individuals and groups doing research or studies in the subarctic, the CNSC gift shop also has arguably the best assortment of t-shirts and hoodies in Churchill, which you can also say to mean within about 700 km, given the remoteness. Seriously, there must be over 15 different colours, it's awesome. It is about 20 km from town though, so walking there from the Tundra Inn would be a foolhardy choice, what with all the polar bear activity in the region.
It took us a little while to track down Sam, and by the time we did, another of Fenya’s co-workers, Natalie, got dragged along for the ride. They are both delightful young ladies, and Parker’s F-150 has a crew cab and back seat, so we were only too happy to have the company, especially since neither of them had seen a polar bear before.
After making our requisite purchases at the CNSC, we checked the whiteboard by the entrance where bear sightings get logged. Seeing one had been spotted at nearby Bird Cove within the past couple of days, we decided we might want to take a look that way and see if we got lucky.
On Launch Road, headed back toward Bird Cove and Churchill, we saw a tundra buggy pulled over on the opposite side of the road, and slowed down, keeping our eyes skinned for the elusive ursus maritimus.
“I think it’s a bust,” Fenya said, "there isn’t anyone up against the windows.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, “they are having some kind of huddle with their guide in the middle of the buggy.”
So we pressed on, but just a little further up the road, a handful of fellows with expensive camera equipment and tripods were piling out of a black Escalade with North Star Tours livery. We pulled over about 25 meters behind them, looked out towards where they were grinning and pointing, and sure enough, a big ol’ polar bear was casually walking parallel to the Launch Road, perhaps 50 m away.
The bear was big (as they tend to be) and a little fiercer around the eyes than the only other such animal I have seen close up, so I immediately began thinking of him as a male, and will continue to do so until given credible evidence otherwise.
He was magnificent, though; lush and healthy looking, striding along without urgency, and yet with a tremendous overland speed, despite the broken terrain he was sauntering across. While Audrey got some video with my phone, I got out with the camcorder, steadying it on the hood of the truck.
I got some good footage (and the still you see above), but the errant ursine’s course and speed would soon take him out of observable range. I turned to my passengers and said, “what do you say we pop ahead of him, turn off on the road that goes out to Bird Cove and the Ithaca and see if we can't get some shots of him coming out the other side of the scrub he’s heading into?”
Everyone agreed enthusiastically. After all, who comes to The Polar Bear Capital of the World and doesn't want to take every opportunity to see one of these gorgeous but intimidating creatures? There is nothing that good on Netflix.
I jumped back into the driver’s seat and we headed down the road. Less than a kilometer later, we came to the Lazy Bear tundra buggy and school bus that marked the turn off to Bird Cove and the rusty wreck of the MV Ithaka, an Italian merchant ship that had run aground there in the 1960s. There is not a lot of space between the Bay and the Launch Road around this spot, and some refer to it as Polar Bear Alley as a result.
The track leading to the cove is rough and rutted, with a couple of deep depressions, one of which looked to be better than 12 feet across and perhaps 4 feet deep and full of water. Thankfully there was a fork providing an alternate route.
We hadn't pulled very far off road when someone spotted our bear striding out of the scrub. Before too long, a buggy from Lazy Bear Lodge followed us down the track, so we pulled over to let him pass, and watched him interact with the buggy riders for almost an hour, moving the vehicle a couple of times to keep him in sight. We even saw a second bear at one point, but he wasn't nearly as inquisitive or photogenic.
The best of our footage is in the video I've posted below, but I'm pretty choked about the scene I missed. After the bear had slumped into a reclining position close to the starboard side of the buggy, a number of patrons were leaning over the edge of the back desk and taking selfies with him in the background.
The trouble is, this particular driver had parked the buggy on just a hint of an incline, and there was a rock or tussock or some other kind of height enhancer for the bear to leverage. When his natural curiosity prompted him to stand up and explore the deck, he was actually able to bend his wrist over the edge of the balcony the tourists were standing on.
When one of the ladies on the deck turned around and realized that a massive apex predator’s claws were now higher than the bottom of her hood had been a second before, she flailed her arms in a Kermit-the-Frog-like fashion, disappeared into the tundra buggy and we never saw her again.
My biggest regret was not catching it on video. My second biggest was not being close enough to hear the noise she must have made.
Afterwards, we retired to the Lazy Bear Lodge for lattés while wondering how the people on the buggy must have felt, having paid hundreds of dollars apiece to go on a tundra safari in a specialized vehicle...only to see a street-legal truck driving to the same place and seeing the same bear for free.
The next day we awoke to a taste of proper Churchill weather, with the forecast calling for 10-15 cm of snow and 70 km/h winds gusting to 90. When Parker opened the door to the porch, the howls of the wind and the coruscations of snow spinning into the house made it look like something out of a cartoon or an old Christmas tv special. We were a little the worse for wear after Fenya’s birthday observances the night before, but brave enough to set foot outside and take some video by the bayside inukshuk.
Actually, this 2 second video from a little earlier with Fenya looks even colder, I think:
Yeah, it's probably the extra snow in the air that does it.
After a late breakfast with our daughter, Audrey and I were eager to go look for bears again, but Fenya elected to return home for a nap. She left the Disneyland duffel bag we had brought up for her and which she had filled with her summer clothes in the truck so we wouldn't forget to bring it later, and we promised to text her when we were on our way back, probably in an hour or so.
Ha.
You are about to go looking for polar bears in a borrowed vehicle! Do you
Grab some bear spray from Parker and Belinda's house just in case
Go see if there is a radio you can borrow
Just drive off, ‘cause time’s-a-wastin’, and it's not like you are going to get out of the truck anyways, right?
Once again, we headed out to Bird Cove, turning off at the tundra buggy and school bus. This time, however, the first depression was more than half full of snow, and halfway through, the burly F-150 ground to a halt.
My eyes widened momentarily in surprise, but I switched the dashboard knob over to “4 High”, gave it some gas, and the truck muscled its way out with very little difficulty.
I looked over at Audrey with an air of smug confidence, but she knew better. “Did that scare you a little bit?” she asked.
“A little bit,” I confessed, “But between the four-wheel-drive and snow tires, it didn't seem too bad, and I figured we could back out if we had to.”
She nodded, somewhat placated but still somewhat uneasy.
Moments later, we came across the second depression perhaps 18 feet across. I lined up on it as Audrey said, “Remember, ‘momentum is your friend’...”
I grinned in response. “Got it,” I said, as I goosed the gas and sent us across the breach.
The tires maintained traction admirably. Unfortunately, it turned out that the two feet of snow bearing us up covered another 18 inches of slush and nearly frozen water. We were halfway across when the snow stopped accommodating the weight of the big truck and we sunk about three feet in a single downward movement.
You’re going to get stuck! Do you
Floor it!
Stop and pray
Try reverse maybe?
My heart sank and my pulse quickened. I pushed the accelerator down in an exploratory fashion, only to hear all four wheels spinning. I let off the gas immediately, turned the wheels slightly and pulled the transmission lever over to reverse, but it was no use. We were well and truly stuck.
I was more annoyed and embarrassed than anything; my cousin Parker, who had lent us this truck in good faith, was a busy and hard working individual, and now I was going to have to call and ask him to come rescue his dumb-ass, city slicker relative.
Well, not without trying to get out under my own power, right? I mean, I've lived in Edmonton most of my life and only started using winter tires 5 years ago. I know how to push a vehicle out of the frickin' snow for pity’s sake!
Telling Audrey to hang tight for a moment, I put on my gloves, opened the door, pushing snow out of the way to do so, and stepped out into it.
Squish.
As I stepped into the nearly waist-high snow, my foot pushed down into perhaps 18 inches of ice cold flavourless tundra slurpee. I was wearing my good hiking boots, waterproof Clarks with a solid sole, but icy slush grabbed my ankle with a clammy and pervasive grip and poured into my otherwise unassailable footwear.
Now your feet are cold and wet! What do you do for an encore?
Climb back into the truck and hope some of Fenya's socks might fit you
Lay down and await death
Swear and push
Well, my feet weren’t going to get any dryer out here, so I figured I might as well keep working at extracting us. I trudged to the front of the truck and saw that snow was up past the front bumper. I motioned Audrey to the driver’s seat, leaned against the bumper and heaved while she put the transmission back into reverse.
It was no use. The snow was too deep, and there was nothing for me to really push against. Schtumping around to the back of the truck, the situation was much the same, except for the twin tracks made by our wheels leading in to our current predicament.
I climbed back into the truck and told Audrey we weren't going anywhere without additional traction. Our options seemed limited.
Pushing has proven ineffective due to your pitiable strength! What do you do next?
Gamble a stamp on the Charles Atlas body building course
Start rationing out the loaf of bread you bought for Belinda and hunker down for the night
Suck it up and call your cousin for help
I feel obliged to point out that it was only after drawing my phone from my pocket and seeing the terrifying words "NO SERVICE" appearing across the top of the display that I truly appreciated the predicament I had placed us in.
The nearest cell tower was probably back at the airport, some 10 km north of us.
We hadn't told anyone of our plans, except Fenya, who was asleep in her room, waiting for us to text her. It could be hours before she woke up.
Even Fenya didn't know know exactly where we were heading.
Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, but, you know, real-life, non-theoretical polar bears.
This had the very real potential of becoming an actual life-threatening situation. And we were on our own, for the nonce.
Think, dammit! What else can you do to move this truck?
It's low tide; march out to the Ithaka and tear off something for leverage
Begin braiding the local grasses into a rope, then start constructing pulleys
Head back to the first depression and find something for traction
This time it was Audrey's turn to pick C. "There was a ramp or something back where we first got stuck..." she mused.
"And some pallets too," I nodded, pulling my tuque back on. "I will head back there and grab something to throw under the wheels."
"Do you want me to come with you?" she asked.
Well, do you?
God, yes! Extra eyes, possible bear distraction...
On second thought, maybe you should go
(Snort) Naw!
I shook my head. In truth, I felt bad enough getting us into this situation, and wanted her to stay comfy and safe as much as we could manage. "No point in both of us gettin' et!" I deadpanned. "Although, if I do get devoured, make sure you find my phone afterwards, because I intend to catch as much of it on video as I can."
She didn't find it as amusing as I did.
I pulled on my gloves and started waling back to the dip, perhaps three or four hundred metres back. The wind had picked up again, polishing the icy surface of the gravel road into a fine sheen, but at least it was to my back. I took mincing steps in my icy, squishy boots, my head constantly on a swivel as I scanned the horizon for polar bears. Despite my caution, one particularly strong gust of wind actually blew me off my feet, my shoes flailing against the ground trying to find purchase as I imagined that hollow sound effect from the Flintstones that always accompanied someone slipping on a banana peel or leaving the scene at speed.
Dressing out at over an eighth of a ton as I do, I don't fall with a surplus of grace under the best of conditions, which these were not. I went down hard, banging my knee, but taking the brunt of the impact on my shoulder. I lay there for a moment catching my breath and collecting my thoughts and realized two things: first, that it was almost criminally stupid to have left Audrey in the vehicle. If I had hit my head and blacked out, she would have absolutely no clue what had become of me, and would have to come looking.
Secondly, I was still in polar bear country, and should get up off of my ass, with the quickness.
I clambered to my feet, surveyed my surroundings, and satisfied I was the largest land mammal in the immediate vicinity, I made my way to the depression. Sure enough, on this side of it was a sturdy set of stairs.. that were made of tube steel and treadplate, looked liked they had fallen off an old tundra buggy or something, and weighed over 200 pounds. I could lift it, but getting it back would take forever, if it didn't just kill me outright.
Trudging through the snow and slush of the dip and refilling my now tepid footwear with more sub-arctic slush, I looked at the sturdy, blue painted palettes. I supposed they had been left here for just this purpose, or perhaps to give better footing to people walking over the snow...in bear country...wait, what?
Focus, man, focus.
You aren't that far from the road, now. Drag something back or make a break for it?
Go get Audrey so the two of you can haul that metal behemoth back!
Head for the road and hope to flag down a passing motorist
(sigh) Grab a palette and start dragging it back
Once again, pangs of empathy shot through my belly as I thought of Audrey waiting for me to return, with no idea where I might have wandered off to (or been dragged, for that matter). Had she been with me, we probably would have pressed on for Launch Road, 3-400 meters away. Instead I grabbed the lightest looking palette, with a few missing boards keeping the weight down to a manageable 50 or 60 pounds or so, and started making my way back to the truck. I pushed it ahead of me in places, dragging it behind me in others, like some sort of Sisyphusean Linus pulling his security blanket of the damned across the treacherous slopes of Acheron.
It was slow going, especially now that I was walking headlong into the biting offshore wind, which had not relented in the least. I managed to keep my feet, but had crosswind gusts blow down the palette or wrench it out of my hands on more than one occasion. Pausing to catch my breath after one such instance, I leaned on the wooden cargo holder, and wondered how much protection it might afford me if a half-ton of hungry apex predator took an interest in me.
Probably about 45 seconds worth, I figured. Better to keep moving.
When I got back to the truck, Audrey was leaning out the open door, keeping watch for me. When I got close enough to hear, she shouted, "What about the floor mats?"
Huh, hadn't thought of that. What do you figure?
No way, man, those things are expensive!
Tell her "That's a pretty good idea... for a girl!" I dare you!
Why the hell not?
"Great idea!" I yelled back. "No reason not to try both."
Before we could do either, though, we had to excavate the wheels, just so we could access their lower halves and try to get some traction aids in there. Audrey passed me the snow brush, but I made better time digging with my gloved hands, like a dog.
After about fifteen minutes of this, my top half was sweating while my gloves and feet were cold and drenched. Time was ticking in more ways than one. I jammed the palette as close behind the right front wheel as I could, while Audrey pushed the floor mats under the rear wheels.
I jumped behind the wheel, switched to "4 Low", put the truck in reverse and gingerly applied the gas.
Nothin'.
I could hear the tires spinning against the palette, but there was no way for them to get a decent grip. Craning my shoulder to look at Audrey, I could see the story was the same for her floor mats. She pointed into the bed of the truck, saying "What about that piece of plywood in there?"
Shutting off the truck, I shlumped over to the tailgate and saw the bed liner she was referring to. Yanking it out unceremoniously, we positioned it sideways beneath the two rear wheels, putting the floor mats on top for any additional purchase they might provide. I kicked at the board's edge, hoping to wedge it in even further, but the snow was completely unaccommodating in this regard.
I got in the truck, started it up, and tried again, with the same result: the sound of clean, wet rubber whirring against slick plywood. Pushing down my window, I shouted at Audrey to try jumping on the bumper. She dutifully did so, opening the hatch to the canopy for a better grip, and made some gain in depth, but no commensurate advantages in traction.
Wait a minute, I thought to myself, why the hell is she out there and not the heavy one?
I ran to the back of the truck, and explained how we should switch places, grabbing onto the tailgate and levering myself up onto the bumper.
And slamming my head firmly against the lip of the canopy.
I staggered off the bumper, seeing stars, but willing myself not to pass out. The thought of my beleaguered wife trying to push my unconscious carcass into the bed of Parker's truck to protect me from being devoured by subarctic wildlife prior to walking out of Polar Bear Alley all by her lonesome gave me enough additional incentive to keep my footing. Waving her back to the cab, I resumed my position on the bumper, more carefully this time, and began to push the bumper down for all I was worth while Audrey gave her some gas.
There was progress of a sort, I suppose, because now showers of dirt and gravel were being flung up by the wheels in addition to the snow and slush, but there was still a disappointing lack of momentum. Exhausted, disappointed, and now with a headache and scuffed scalp for good measure, I retreated to the cab of the truck with Audrey and had her turn on the engine so we could warm up.
The dash clock said 2:15. "All right," I said, "We are not missing that flight if we can help it, but if we are going to leg it out to the road and possibly the CNSC, we are going to have to hat up pretty quick. 15 minutes to warm up, and let's GTFOD*, all right?"
*Get The F(larn) Outta Dodge
Audrey nodded. I got out to move the palette out of the way of the door to help whoever ended up trying to extract the truck from this slushy quagmire, then climbed back in to see Audrey packing up Fenya's duffel.
"You aren't figuring on bringing that damned thing with us, are you?" I inquired indignantly. "It must weigh near 20 pounds!"
She looked at me with steely eyes, and simply said "Yes." With authority.
I blinked once, before suddenly perceiving the options she had been presented:
Time to get the flarn outta Dodge City, cowgirl. Anything you want to take with you?
That loaf of bread, for sustenance
The rear view mirror, for signalling and looking behind us
The duffel bag and clothes, for distractions
Fenya had to take a Bear Awareness and Safety Course when she started working in Churchill, and told us all manner of helpful things and entertaining anecdotes. One of these was the strategy of taking off an item of clothing when approached by a polar bear. They are extremely curious, you see, and their primary sense is that of smell. With any luck, they will stop to investigate the scent of what you have dropped, while you continue moving away, repeating the maneuver if necessary. You may end up naked, but if it gets you further away from a polar bear, that is still a win.
Where I had seen useless encumbrance, my brilliant wife had seen a big bag of time.
Thank God one of us was keeping their wits about them!
"Awesome, good idea. I'm all caught up now," I said. She nodded and handed me the snow brush, which I took without hesitation before asking, "Okay, and what's this for, then?"
There was only a hint of eyeroll as she said, "A weapon, if it should come to that."
I looked at the 12 inch tool, with its cheery pink ice scraper, and shrugged. "I guess it beats trying to pull whiskers out of his nose one at a time, eh?"
"Something like that."
Unwilling to wait any longer, we shut off the ignition and left the keys in the little cubby under the radio. We wrote texts to Fenya and Parker, so that if we wandered back within range of a cell tower, they would know we had run into trouble. We clambered out of the cab at about 2:25, scanned our surroundings for bears, and seeing none, began making our way back to Launch Road.
It wasn't too awful far, but we were cold, tired and apprehensive about the possibility of encountering one of the cuddly tundra daemons we had watched so placidly the day before, so it was slow going. Once we got to the corner, we could probably get into the buggy or the bus to warm up out of the wind, and there might even be a radio we could use to try to get in touch with Parker. Failing that, if the keys had been left in the school bus (which was common in Churchill), I had already resolved that I would be learning to straight-up drive a school bus today y'all.
I was still feeling terribly responsible for our current circumstance, so as we shuffled forward over the icy track, doing our best to walk on exposed gravel instead of ice or snow, I tentatively asked Audrey, "So, on a scale of 1 to 10, how mad at me would you say you are? You don't have to justify it or anything, I just want to know what I am working with here."
God bless 'er, she just shook her head. "I could have told you to turn back after the first time we got stuck. I just feel so stupid about causing more trouble for Parker and Belinda!"
I nodded. Barring our actual demise, inconveniencing the incredibly busy family members who had bought us so far to surprise Fenya and who had put us up in their home felt like a pretty terrible outcome.
Although missing that charter flight and having to wait days for the next one or take a commercial flight out of Churchill at a cost of multiple thousands of dollars wasn't too appealing either.
As we approached the corner, Audrey said, "Y'know, I think there is another vehicle there now."
We were about 50 meters away from the buggy, and that could well be an additional bumper peeking out from around it. I craned my neck downward, and say a booted foot step out of something and onto the frozen ground.
We quickened our pace and were gratified to see 4 tourists piling out of an 11 passenger Econoline van they had rented from the Tamarack in town. We waved as we hurried up to them and said, "Are we ever glad to see you! We were out looking for bears and got stuck, and I hate to inconvenience you, but could you possibly give us a lift to the Studies Centre?"
They looked back at us blankly for a moment, and because they were of East Indian extraction, I feared they might be from the other side of the world and not speak English, but then one of them spoke with a puzzled tone in accented but clear English, saying, "You...got stuck?"
Now I was a little confused. "Well, yes," I confessed, "We were out looking for bears, went off road in my cousin's truck and got stuck crossing a slush filled ditch."
His eyes widened. "You were driving out there?" he said, pointing to the coast.
"Yes..." I said.
The sole woman travelling with them smiled and said, "Oh, we saw you walking and thought there was maybe a hiking trail here, and stopped to check it out."
"Good heavens, no!" I exclaimed. "I mean, thank goodness you stopped, but no, you can't walk out here, this is totally bear country! We saw two adult males on this very spot yesterday, and never would have gotten out of the truck if we'd had a choice."
You wanna roll up on this on foot, foo'?
They blanched a bit at that, but graciously agreed to give us a ride to the CNSC. Once there, we still had no cell service, but were able to use one of their phones to call Parker, and he answered quickly: "So you're stuck?"
I explained the situation, and to my relief, he was truly laid back about the whole thing. "I left work early today so I could take you to the airport. I just finished pouring a cup of coffee from the pot I made and have nothing else to do. I already pulled one guy out of the snow today, and then he had to return the favour. It's no big deal. I will head out to the Studies Centre right away and see you in maybe half an hour."
In short order, he had shown up in his 3/4 ton Manitoba Hydro truck with his friend Lionel. We headed out to the abandoned F-150, and with a length of ship's rope attached to the smaller Ford's trailer hitch, Lionel drove it out in about five minutes.
Once back at Parker and Belinda's house, we had about 15 minutes to finish our packing and get out to the airport. Parker wrapped my dripping hikers with plastic bags and sealed them with electrical tape (and a day later, not a drop had leaked out, either!) while I rushed upstairs to change. I peeled off my socks and toweled off my feet before putting on the wool socks Parker had lent me. Removing the towel, I noted that my feet had very little sensation. In fact, they felt remarkably similar to the whole fish I had held at the grocery store in the summer: cold, clammy, and a bit alien. I have never been so grateful for warm fuzzy socks in my life.
They rustled me up an old pair of size 12s, courtesy of Parker's son, Thomas, and we raced off to the airport. Where, coincidentally, they have an absolutely enormous polar bear pelt.
We thanked them again for their hospitality, and said goodbye to them and to Fenya, who we would at least be seeing again at the end of the month. Less than an hour later, we were snugly ensconced in a Nolinor 737, winging our way to Winnipeg while taking in an amazing sub-arctic sunset over the starboard wing.
[EPILOGUE]
On the ride from the Winnipeg airport to our hotel, we had a great chat with our cabbie, comparing our experiences seeing polar bears from a tundra buggy and truck with his of seeing tigers in the jungles of India from an open jitney and the back of an elephant.
Stumbling in to the reception desk of the Best Western we were exhausted but in good spirits. I gave my name to the clerk, who frowned at the display before a display of understanding crossed his face.
"You were booked into a mobility room, with a roll in shower, is that right?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied sheepishly. "Honestly, I just took the first room with a queen-size bed that came up on the Air Miles site, and never noticed."
"Oh, it's no problem," he smiled, "It's just that we needed that room for another guest and took the liberty of upgrading you to a whirlpool suite. I hope that's all right..."
I returned his grin with a smile of my own. "Brother, the kind of day it's been, that is a lot more than all right. In fact, it is just what the doctor ordered."
And that is my capping memory of the day: eating a Reuben sandwich from room service and drinking a Fort Garry Dark Ale as Audrey enjoyed a vodka cranberry and chicken wings while up to her neck in hot sudsy water.
I still had half of my second beer left when it was my turn.
