Sunday, October 19, 2008

Day seventeen

This morning we got up at quarter to dawn to fly to Churchill to see POLAR BEARS! We landed in Churchill after a two hour flight at about 10am. Here's a picture of our plane on the runway after we got on the bus.
This is the world famous polar bear jail! Bears that are caught too close to town before the sea ice freezes are trapped and kept here until they can be released a safe distance away out on the sea ice. They don't get fed, they only get water to drink. It's to encourage them not to come back.
The bears are caught in these traps.
I don't know if I've mentioned how cold it was in Churchill. Oh and those white dots you see in the picture? Not bad photography, no no, that's snow.
Just up the road from the sign that says you shouldn't walk in this area because there are polar bears about, is this boat. The locals have turned it into a sort of playground. We didn't go and play, you know, because of all the polar bears that were about.
After lunch in town (not an exciting place, if you're not going to see polar bears I really don't know why you'd go to Churchill) we had booked a helicopter flight out over the tundra. These are the helicopters we went on.
FIRST POLAR BEAR SIGHTING!! Okay it's a bit blurry but I was excited and it's hard to keep a camera really still on a helicopter.

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