At the edge of West Hudson Bay is the small town of Churchill, Manitoba.
Here, the ocean encounters a northern forest under the rippling aurora. Further north, the trees stop growing. The snow covers the harsh landscape of Canadian shields, cutting willows into yardsbays.
There is no path leading to Churchill. Railroad lines and airport runways that occasionally carry charter planes.
But it attracts tourists and scientists. Because for a short period of autumn, the Arctic kings travel through the town to frozen sea ice houses. Travelers are to come here from all over the world and lock their eyes with polar bears.
Bear
Polar bears meander through Churchill every fall while waiting for the bay ice to form. Males can first take them to the ice, walk the edge, test them, and hunt the seals that finally ring out – the main food source.
Scientists gather in Churchill as it is the most accessible point for studying polar bears. The bears here are the most researched and most photographed in the world.
These Arctic beasts have great individuality. Men often get ready for a recharged battle during mating season, in preparation for a recharged battle in the spring of spring.
The Cubs stay close to their mother for two to three years until they are chased and forced to live on their own. The following year they test the water – when they learn to hunt and maintain themselves in the tundra, they may have a hard time survival.
“Severe changes in ecosystems”
However, in recent years, the warming Arctic Circle has melted its habitat on ice and has changed bear behavior. Scientists at Polar Bear International say the ice formed two weeks after the 1980s and retreated two weeks before spring.
This month’s environmental changes force bears to approach humans and maintain them from farther north to the Silleah in the north, and up to the coast for longer.
It’s a change that their parents or grandparents didn’t have to face – caused by changing climates. Yes, bears have been constantly evolving since diverging from the Grizzly about half a million years ago, but the pace of change is an astounding scientist.
Chief climate scientists at the International Flavioliner of polar bears said that due to sea ice reductions, polar bear populations in West Hudson Bay were low at 618, about half of what was in the 1980s.
“It’s very deep,” he says. “It’s hard to find anywhere else other than the deforestation of the Amazon, where such severe changes in ecosystems caused by climate change may be seen.”
Leaner doesn’t expect the situation to improve, and beyond population decline, he is also seeing changes in behavior. Previously, finding a mother with a triplet was much more typical, but in his personal experience it is now rare.
Scientists at Polar Bears International say these bears can maintain themselves comfortably on the land for 180 days. In other parts of the world, bears have seen hunting birds and reindeer, but scientists say this high protein diet can damage the kidneys and won’t stop them from losing 2-4 pounds a day when they’re outside the ice.
“The pace of change is currently running too fast,” explained John Whiteman, chief research scientist at PBI. “Polar bears cannot evolve or adapt in time to cope with current sea ice losses.”
Whiteman hopes that the polar bear will stick with Churchill for the next decade or so, but the timeline will begin to blur in 20-30 years.
“In the end, I know that I’ll lose the sea ice or not, the polar bear,” Whiteman said.
town
Churchill has always been a cliff town. It lives a lot – from home to indigenous people, to post offices to the current military towns, to the polar bear capital of the world.
It attracts a special type of person. Often, loneliness brings joy. People who come for employment are Seminomad tourism workers, or maybe they are looking for change. They were guides, nature lovers, and seasonal workers were drawn to this slower, simpler pace of life.
Others – like the mayor of Mike Spence in 30 years of town, he has come to life here. When he was a child, town guards shot 20-22 bears a year. But over time, my approach changed.
“First of all, we respect wildlife,” he says. “Polar bears are extremely important in the Indigenous world. It’s at the pinnacle of its food chain. There’s a lot of respect for it.”
The town is now facing a future where the polar bear tourist season could potentially disappear. In the interim, communities are forced to coexist more closely with the bears while waiting for ice to form in the bay. And with infrastructure also struggling to adapt to warming climates and melting permafrost, Spence is one of many people looking for a solution.
“We’ve been challenged all the time,” Spence says. But the community also “usually finds a way.”
These solutions include taking command of ports and rail lines that collapsed in 2017 due to a combination of flooding and lack of maintenance. We hope that as we begin to make the most of our potential, we will be welcoming more consistent work and resources for our community. Meanwhile, the town’s new program will grow microgreens, with new arctic resistant garbage containers scattered across the street, all building a sustainable path north for people and wildlife.
“What we have to do now is based on the youth that grew up here, so they play a bigger role in building stronger communities and bigger communities,” says Spence. “It’s pretty valuable to see for themselves what they have.”
Fight for the future
On the outskirts of town, Wyatt Daly tied up his sled dogs and prepared to lead the first of the day’s three tours. Autumn is the peak of tourist season, and he glides through the snow and spends his day among the trees in the snowy forest.
Churchill relies on tourism that comes from those who want to see polar bears. To keep their business up, some tourism companies are looking for a pivot to protect their future.
One of these ways is to promote other aspects of this Wild North. This is the Aurora dancing the fictional and annual Beluga whale migration this year for 300 nights and the summer.
However, it’s not just economic engines that need to be fueled. They are eager to see their families and the next generation choose Churchill, choose it, and taste everything they have to offer.
Wyatt Daly was one of the children that he asked his parents to move further south many years ago. His father, Dave, a dog masher and tourist company owner, shook his head and said, “We have dogs, and this is where we make a living.” And that was the end of that particular conversation.
He watched his friends and their families fleeing in search of “better opportunities.” After graduating he traveled the world and worked in the tourism industry in Australia and Cologne. But he went home. Return to the dog and return to Churchill.
Churchill gave him “everything,” he says. He feels connected to the dog, the land. His father is his best friend. And that’s exactly what he wants from his son Noah (now three).
“I remember being a little kid and standing backskiing with my dad and going on tour,” he says. “That’s what I’m most looking forward to right now. …I’m thinking (Noah) is coming out and going on tour with me.”
However, this legacy is threatened by the warming Arctic Circle, and the weight that Daly feels as she fights to protect her Northern lifestyle.
“It’s a scary idea to think that a polar bear might not be here one day,” says Dave Daley. “Planet Earth is a living being, and we are the ones who step on it and change everything. I think we really need to deal with it and take this seriously.”
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Erin Hassanzade
