Day twenty

Here's the most important shot of the day.Yes people, those are BABY polar bears. With their mum. How freakin' cute are they? These babies are about 10 months old.

This afternoon we travelled back to Churchill and spent an hour in town before heading back to the airport. We flew back to Winnipeg and arrived around 8.pm. After three exhausting days on the tundra buggy seeing the amazing polar bears, we crashed out (after having our first showers for three days).

Day nineteen

Today I will mostly let the photos speak for themselves.
Except for this one. The story here is that one of the tundra buggies blew a tyre and it had to be changed. Going on the ground in polar bear territory is not advisable. There were three men to change the tyre, and one man to stand on the roof of the tractor (being used to jack up the tundra buggy) with a shotgun in case of polar bears. Just as well he was there too. One very large male bear spotted the potential for some lunch and snuck up in the grass. The tyre changing boys jumped into the tundra buggy until he went away. But he didn't go away. He got closer and closer (very slowly) until they had to get in the mechanic's vehicle and drive at the bear to chase him off. We called it polar bear reality tv.

This is a snowy owl. They nest on the ground. Well, there are no trees.

Day eighteen

After our first night on the Tundra Buggy Lodge, which was an experience, let me tell you. We had bunks, which is fine. But there were 18 of us in one buggy and we had one shower and two toilets for all those people to share. It was ... cosy. But seeing these magnificent beasts made it totally worthwhile.

This is the outside of the lodge. Sorry about the reflection, I didn't have much more opportunity to get a good photo.OH MY GOD look it's a polar bear! This one spent most of the time just sitting in the kelp bed and waiting for the ice. He would sometimes raise his head as we drove past, but mostly he ignored us and slept.
This one did almost the same thing.
Want to know what a polar bear butt looks like? I have many variations on this shot.
This bear obliged by at least not showing me his butt as I took the photo.
And here's the sunset from our second night. It had snowed early in the morning then cleared up and we had great weather.