Day 5 - Polar Bears Up Close!
Tuesday, November 12
Today we were out on the polar rover by 8:00am and spent the entire day on the tundra. It had snowed overnight and was snowing and overcast all day.
The ice was increasing in Hudson’s Bay and so we saw all our bears near the shore line. We saw several from a distance and two up close and personal. (I took a lot of video of them reaching up the side of our vehicle, but the wifi bandwidth at our hotel is not strong enough to download them.)
We came across a group of bears for the first time. There were four of them lounging around in a thicket of willow shrubs. Occasionally two of them would wrestle around or get up a spar together.
There’s a website (explore.org) that runs live web cams all over the world and they have one that roams the area where we were to show what’s going on with the polar bears! They were filming these same four bears for much of the day today! You can watch it here.
In the evening, the two women from the World Wildlife Fund who are with us spoke to us about the work they are doing to strengthen communities in light of the climate crisis we’re facing.
Another spectacular day! Tomorrow we visit the local museum before flying out in the afternoon back to Winnipeg.