Text and Photos by Yvette Cardozo, Mitchel Osborne and courtesy of Travel Manitoba
March, 2012 Vol. 16, No. 4
Face down in the 42 degree water of Churchill River off Hudson Bay in Arctic Canada, I’ve got company — a 16 foot, stark white beluga whale is staring at me, sly little grin on his face. I stare back and squeak into my snorkel. He disappears, offended perhaps at whatever I said. But maybe not … because then he’s back, now with a friend. And there are more, like ghosts, in the distance.
This is the OTHER Churchill: summer (sort of), whales, hardly any tourists. And an occasional bear.
Traveling halfway to the North Pole to escape the city heat does seem a tad extreme. but this quirky little town of 850 on the western shore of Manitoba’s Hudson Bay, where local guys wait for the fly-in barber to get their hair cut, is the crossroads for one of the most amazing animal shows on earth.In fall, thousands of polar bears pad through, looking improbably cute as they play-fight and impatiently wait for ice to form so they can go hunt seals. In summer, it’s beluga whales by the thousand, chowing down on capelin, giving birth, scratching itchy backs on rocks in the shallow rivers that empty into the bay.
And my friends and I have come to join them in the water.