Itinerary
Arrive in Winnipeg, Manitoba's vibrant capital, and transfer to the venerable Fort Garry Hotel in the heart of the city. This French-style chateau is a National Historic Site, built in 1913 by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and still the grande dame of Winnipeg, offering elegant atmosphere and first-class hospitality. Meet your Expedition Leader for an orientation and welcome dinner this evening.
Fly by chartered plane to Churchill, a remote subarctic town that evolved near the site of an important 17th-century Hudson's Bay Company fur-trading post. On arrival, we transfer to the Tundra Lodge via Polar Rover—a specialized custom vehicle built to traverse the tundra—with our first chance to photograph polar bears and other wildlife along the way. Here on the edge of Hudson Bay, where boreal forest gives way to Arctic tundra, animals abound, even in the harsh climate that envelops this environment much of the year. We may see caribou, Arctic fox, Arctic hare, ptarmigan and snowy owl, as well as the undisputed King of the North, the mighty polar bear. Our Photo Expedition Leaders, intimately acquainted with polar bear traits and behavior, interpret all we see. Once we're settled in to the Tundra Lodge for our first of four nights, we'll have dinner and an evening presentation by our guides, who share tips for capturing the best shots of Arctic wildlife, including polar bears, plus northern landscapes, drawing on their extensive experience in these environs.
The Tundra Lodge is strategically positioned in the Churchill region's best area for polar bear viewing. Each fall, several hundred polar bears congregate in the vicinity of Churchill, waiting for the ice to freeze on Hudson Bay to begin their winter seal-hunting season. Ice often forms first around the small spit of land where the Tundra Lodge is located, attracting more bears to this area than any other. While we don't see dozens at once, we do tend to get frequent bear activity in this location. And since we are staying directly on the tundra, we have ideal early-morning and late-afternoon photo opportunities, with magical, lingering light. In addition to multiple outdoor observation decks, the lodge has plenty of common areas—a lounge with sofas and chairs as well as a dining car, both with large sliding windows—so photographers have plenty of space to shoot spontaneously.
Inquisitive bears often approach the lodge at close range, and its rows of windows and elevated outdoor decks accommodate our own curiosity. As we watch the bears interact, we're delighted by their antics and rugged beauty. We may see mothers with cubs, young males play-fighting, and solitary individuals lumbering over the tundra. We combine observation from the Tundra Lodge with excursions in our special all-terrain tundra vehicles called Polar Rovers, to afford lodge guests the best possible variety of wildlife encounters in the area. At the end of each exhilarating day, we come together for dinner and photography presentations. On a clear night, we may be fortunate to photograph the wondrous phenomenon of the northern lights. The aurora often begins as a faint white glow, then intensifies in scope and color as it shimmers across the dark sky. While the lights are never guaranteed, Churchill has some of the most frequent auroral activity on Earth.
We reluctantly leave the wild tundra this morning and head back to the town of Churchill, yet more northern adventure awaits: Before our afternoon flight to Winnipeg, we have a chance to go for a ride with a team of lively sled dogs! Just outside town, we meet a local musher and his team, spending time getting to know and learn about the dogs before taking turns riding behind them on an exhilarating run through the boreal forest. If time permits, there may also be a chance to pick up last-minute handicrafts and souvenirs, or to take an optional helicopter flight over the tundra before we depart. We'll have a farewell lunch together before our chartered flight back to Winnipeg, where a final reception caps our Arctic adventure.
After breakfast, transfer to the airport for flights home.
An important note on polar bear viewing: Since 1989, we have run approximately 1,500 departures to Churchill to view polar bears, and we’ve missed seeing them on just a handful of occasions. Some of our sightings are up close, and others are from afar, or even from a helicopter. It’s important to remember that while there is no better opportunity to see polar bears in the wild than our Churchill trips offer, the experience is weather-dependent. That means viewing polar bears—and the distance at which we may be able to photograph them—is unpredictable and not guaranteed.
Check out more details on the ebbs and flows of the Churchill polar bear viewing season .
