A Churchill Adventure!

This past weekend, I went to Churchill with my sister to celebrate my upcoming birthday (it's a big one)! Teachers are allowed to take 2 personal days per year, so I took Friday and Monday. As sad as I was to miss Halloween with the students of Room 31, I LOVED my adventure in Churchill! This is one of the best times to see polar bears, as they are waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze over. The town of Churchill is in their migration path. By mid-November, they will be out on the ice and not seen until spring.

Within an hour of arriving and renting a truck on Friday, we saw a "bear lift". This is when polar bears are transferred from the polar bear jail to a remote location on the tundra. Bears are placed in jail when they have put the town of Churchill at risk. Some bears stay in jail for up to a month! The one we saw looked like a mother and a cub. It was perfect timing!

We saw our first bear while driving around! It was soooooo awesome - he was just strolling along a road! We also saw the wreck of a ship from the 1960's called the MV Ithaca. It looked so neat. Apparently, when the tide is low, you can go closer to the ship! We also found Miss Piggy - a cargo plane that had crashed in 1979. Luckily, no one died, but the wreckage of the plane remains on the rocks. It was named Miss Piggy because of it's huge amount of cargo room, and the fact that it once transported pigs!

On Saturday, we went out on the Tundra Buggy to see the polar bears! We saw a mom with 2 cubs, a male that came up super close to check out our soup that we were having for lunch, and another mom with one cub. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat! We also saw a ptarmigan; which is a bird with feathery feet, and a fox!

Yesterday, we went dog sledding! It was so much fun and the dogs clearly love their "job"! The dogs were so friendly and excited! While we waited for our turn, we could visit with the dogs, or feed the whiskey jacks!

It was a trip to remember!   :)