Issue link: http://publications.winnipegfreepress.com/i/368665
Sleep under the northern lights and wake up to the aroma of fresh coffee and the sight of polar bears on your doorstep during overnight tours in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area. Great White Bear Tours' (www.greatwhitebeartours.com) Tundra Lodge and Frontiers North Adventures' (www.frontiersnorth.com) Tundra Buggy Lodge both have dining and sleeping accommodations. Frontiers North's packages start from a single night in Churchill and include multi-day trips with visits to local attractions such as the polar bear compound, where bears who roam too close to town cool their heels until they can be safely released. And Heartland Day Tours (www.heartlandtravel.ca) offers a day trip that starts with breakfast on an early morning flight from Winnipeg. Spend a day on the tundra and you can be back in Winnipeg in time for a nightcap. The Great Canadian Travel Company (www.greatcanadiantravel.com) provides extra space for camera equipment on its Polar Photography Tour, and its signature six-day Polar Bear Experience Tour includes visits to historic Cape Merry and the Eskimo Museum. The Wat'chee Lodge borders a world-famous polar bear denning area at Wapusk National Park. For a few weeks each spring, guides lead photography excursions as mothers and cubs emerge from their dens. Churchill Wild (www.churchillwild.com) operates three fly-in lodges on Hudson Bay where guests enjoy luxury accommodations along with ground-level wildlife excursions and 360° views from lodge towers. Churchill Nature Tours (www.churchillnaturetours.com) makes sure everyone has a window seat on its Polar Rover vehicles. And Lazy Bear Lodge (www.lazybearlodge.com) does double duty as a tour operator and hotel. Take a polar bear tour on an Arctic Crawler, then relax in front of the hotel's massive fireplace and dine on specialties such as Arctic char. Enjoy regional fare from pickerel to perogies at Gypsy's Bakery & Restaurant, raise a pint at the Tundra Inn and run with the big dogs at Blue Sky Bed & Sled. Browse for aboriginal and Inuit crafts, soapstone carvings and other artwork at the Arctic Trading Company and the Eskimo Museum, and if you're in town in March, join the fun at Churchill Aurora Winterfest. From December to April, you can take a snowshoe or snowmobile tour with Churchill Subarctic Tours (www.macriphoto.ca). And the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (www.churchillscience.ca) is open year-round. The non-profit centre offers unique learning vacations that connect guests to scientists and local experts as they learn about polar bears, beluga whales, the aurora borealis and the diverse northern ecosystem. Along with polar bears, you could spot Arctic hare, wolves, caribou and some 30 other mammals. Hundreds of species of birds summer in the North, and a good many spend the winter, too — grey jays even lay eggs when it's 40-below. www.everythingchurchill.com polar BearS 13