Polar Bear Hunt!
Last March Terry and I were sitting together having coffee one morning when he saw an article in the paper that peaked his interest. “Would you be interested in seeing the polar bears?” he said. I affirmed that that would be a very cool thing to do so before we left the living room he had booked the excursion on his phone.
Jump ahead to the end of October and it was time for us to go! The instructions recommended that we wear layers of clothing for warmth, to bring snacks, a camera of course, and that there would be breakfast, lunch, and dinner provided!
Unfortunately, we had to set our alarm for 3:30 am to get to the private hangar in time but to my surprise so did MANY other people! (I pictured a ‘puddle jumper’ plane! ) The Gold Star folks were very organized and there was even enough Tim’s coffee and doughnuts for all 50 (?) of us. Our daughter had done this same trip 10 years ago. So talk about climate change…..when she arrived it was all snow and ice!
We hopped on buses that drove us aways to the Gold Star platform where we climbed onto the large ‘safari buggies’ that were to be our ride for the entire day! ‘Jim’ was our tour bus driver and he was great. So funny and knowledgeable and I felt safe with him as he’d been driving for over 20 years.
When we started the journey by land buggy I was trying not to feel disappointed at the lack of polar bears. Lots of interesting topography and I was still happy to say we’d seen such a northern place in Canada. But all of a sudden….
I have many many photos of these bears at various distances away (I think Terry said he took something like 600 photos!) but I’m only posting my faves.
On the back of each buggy was a viewing platform. Now THAT is where one could feel instantly freezing from the wind. But it was a great idea and I went out a couple of times. Terry stood out there with our new friend, Ken Kozak, who had THE longest lense ever and sent me the last 3 photos you see next…..
We had a yummy lunch on the buggy : a choice of freshly made sandwiches, soup, homemade cookies, and hot chocolate, pops, waters, or coffee or tea!
At around 5 pm we headed back to the buses to go into the town of Churchill. In the huge multipurpose community centre we were served a wonderful roast beef buffet dinner all the while listening to live music from an Australian guitar player! At the end of the meal the Gold Star folks presented each couple or single with a wooden Christmas tree decoration commemorating the day! There was a raffle too!
Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the airport. Now I must admit that by this point the old knees were very unhappy….so much up and down and Terry helping me get up each time. (….even from toilets as there were no accessible ones all day long!) But I finally got up the stairs into the bus, found our seats at the back, when we heard this unfortunate announcement : “Sorry folks, you’ll all have to deboard again because our plane is malfunctioning and we’ll have to find another one.”
At about 9 pm, back in the community hall, a fellow traveller said the next plane was probably 2 and a half hours away!
Well, our musician, Roy, kept on playing the guitar (Wow!) and people made the best of it by dancing or heading back to the ‘bar’. But as GOOD luck would have it , they were able to fix the original plane which just wasn’t charged up enough (?) and we soon were back on our way home where we crawled into bed at 12:30 am.
We would have loved to have slept in but we were leading the music at mass the next day. I didn’t mind. SO much for which to be thankful!
