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Churchill, Canada - Home of the Polar Bear
November 11 - 17, 2008
Located 600 miles north of Winnipeg, Churchill,
Canada is one of the only places in the world where you can easily
view polar bears in their natural habitat. Polar bears come to
Churchill after 5 months of hibernation to wait while the Hudson
Bay freezes over and they can migrate north. For a photographer,
the place is a dream....
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Churchill is located in Canada on the shore of Hudson
Bay. There are no roads to Churchill so you're limited to train or
plane in getting there.
It is a small town of less than 1,000
people who for six weeks from October thru November get very busy with
polar bear activity.
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Welcome to Churchill. This is pretty much it.
That's a grain factory you see straight ahead. It's accessible via
train and boat. The town is on both sides of this street (Kelsey
Blvd).
Average temperature in Churchill at this time of year is
highs in the 20's and lows below 0.
The winds are the key. They can
lower the temperature as well as cause a "white out" (think sandstorm
but with snow).
During our week there we saw the sun once for
about 10 minutes (just above the horizon)
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Polar bears tend to go where the food is and that includes the town.
They have "Bear Patrols" that respond to any bear sightings.
You
have to remember, these bears have been hibernating for 5 months and
are fairly hungry. That and they're not afraid of anything.
To
control bears coming into town the bear patrol will fire some warning
shots to try and scare off the bear. If that doesn't work they'll use
rubber bullets.
If that doesn't work they'll trap the bear in one
of these and haul them off to Polar Bear Jail...
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Welcome to polar bear jail. We were not allowed inside
but were told there were currently 13 bears in lockup. They hold the
bears until
the bay freezes over and then lets them all go. They
make it fairly uncomfortable for the bears. Why? One year they fed
them a little food
and the next year the bears came back looking
for more. |
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Churchill is not only about polar bears. There is a
variety of animals that live on the tundra.
These are arctic dogs
and they live outside. They are well taken care of and not bothered by
the bears. Most were very friendly and excited to see us.
We
made it into a little game to see who could capture as much wildlife
as possible. You'll see my results below but the dogs count as one.
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The arctic dogs were beautiful animals. Most had a
variety of colors but some only one. Their long thick fur seemed to
protect them from the cold. |
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Once on the tundra it was like being in a black-n-white world. There
was an absence of color most of the time.
This HDR photo (a
composite of 5 photos of different exposures) displays the slight
greenish cast of the ice we were near while displaying the
dark
clouds off in the distance (over the Hudson Bay). This was a common
sight to have such contrast between land and sky.
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As a polar bear walks by with a Tundra Buggy in the background you can
see how much polar bears stand out against an almost gray-scaled
world.
That's the Hudson Bay in the background. During the week we
were there, this part of the bay froze up completely. It was a
different view every day. |
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This is usually how we'd come upon a polar bear. Again,
they are afraid of nothing so they lay anywhere they want to.
Most the time they'd get up and come over to check us out. They
"seemed" very calm and docile.
One note: The trees in this
picture could be anywhere from 100-800 years old.
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I was a Nikon boy in a sea of Canon's.
This is a view from one
of the Tundra Buggy's. Each buggy has an open air balcony on the back
and I'm out there looking toward the front.
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Here's what one of the balconies looks like. It's got a
grate instead of a solid floor for just such an occasion as a polar
bear wanders underneath. |
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The Tundra Buggy's go out day and night. It's an
expansive landscape but the drivers know the area well.
We'd start
out together and then eventually split up into our own areas. |
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Ok, here's the wildlife I captured in addition to the
polar bears.
1. Red fox (we saw 1), 2. Ptarmigan bird (we saw
6), 3. Snow fox (we saw 1) and 4. Arctic rabbit (we saw 3)
All
of these images are highly cropped and very noisy but hey, I got them!
It was so dark when the rabbits were out that the camera couldn't
focus (that's an ISO 25,600 image, manual focus, highly cropped)
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Finally, the one thing we never thought we'd see (due
to the constant cloud cover) was the Northern Lights. On the way back
from a night shoot,
our driver pulled over and everyone piled out
to see a spectacular sight. Everyone's cameras were packed away so
this shot is from my LX-3 P&S
and doesn't do the sight justice. I
can't describe the experience of watching the northern lights dance
but trust me, it's worth the effort to view them.
It's one of
the greatest sights I've ever seen. it's almost transcendent.
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Yours truly in action. Nikon D3 with Nikon 200-400mm
f/4 VR lens. Stickers by a friends company,
Inbloom |
Photographer Notes...
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When preparing for Churchill I had three main questions -
First, what to do about the cold, second, how big a lens
do I need to bring, and third, how/what do I pack all this
in? |
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To consider:
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The cold never really came into play as far as affecting
battery life. We were never out on the tundra for more
than 15-30 minutes at a time. I found one battery held up
for the entire day with no issues (although I had the
spare with me at all times).
- Lens focal length -
400mm with a TC worked well. I would have liked a 500mm to
be honest. There were plenty of opportunities to get
close-up shots of the bears but the longer focal length
helped minimize the fact that you were shooting from 9
feet above ground level. Verdict: 400mm is as small as I
would go. If you can lug a 600mm then it can pay off for
you. If you can't - don't.
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Carry-on pack sizes are important. The smaller planes would
take your carry-on and place it in a central area of the
plane (it would only go underneath the plane of the
central area filled up which ours did once). The ThinkTank
Ultralight worked perfectly! While heavy, it fit anywhere
I needed it to and was easy to transport from place to
place. It never left my possession no matter where I was.
- Gloves: I brought two types of gloves. First I
brought my thick ski gloves just in case it got too cold.
Second I brought Burton snowboarding gloves. Thin, light,
wind-resistant. I wore these 99% of the time and could
operate the camera with no issues. I had hand warmers in
my pockets and would warm my hands with them every once in
a while. I only took out the heavy gloves once when we
were outside during a nasty cold spell.
- Hand &
Feet warmers: Bring them! They work for both your hands,
your feet and your equipment bag! No gimmicks here, they
are the real deal.
- Tripod or Monopod - Both: The
monopod was excellent when shooting from the Tundra
Buggies both inside and out on the balcony. It was
flexible and allowed quick movement. Other shooters were
using beanbags on the window sills of the buggy and that
also seemed to work well for them but with the monopod I
could literally shoot over their shoulder. The tripod is
critical if you're going to get any decent shots of the
northern lights and trust me, if there's a chance they'll
be out, lugging a tripod that distance will suddenly
become worth it.
- Take a P&S: The LX-3 was with me
at all times, even when my other gear was packed and it
paid off more than a few times. It also has a movie mode
which came in handy when we attended a local event and
they played some native music.
- There's a lot of
equipment hauling: On the bus, off the bus, on the buggy,
off the buggy, back to the hotel, recharge and repack.
It's a good idea to have a lens on a body and accessible
at all times. You never know when the bus driver is going
to stop for something cool to shoot. Packing is critical.
- Cell phone & Internet access: There is no cell phone
access in Churchill. There was however wireless Internet
access in our hotel which was a great surprise (Northern
Nights Lodge). It allowed me to use my iPhone for email
and general access to the world. |
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Equipment:
After reviewing
images from other photographers and talking with others on
the trip, here is the equipment I ended up bringing with
me to Churchill:
The following was
packed in a
ThinkTank Photo Airport Ultralight backpack:
-
Nikon D3, Nikon D40x
- Panasonic LX-3 point-n-shoot
- Nikon 200-400mm VR
- Nikon 70-200mm VR
- Nikon
14-24mm
- Nikon 10.5mm fisheye
- Nikon TC14EII
teleconverter
- Nikon SB-900 flash
- Extra EN-EL4a
and EN-EL9 battery
- SportsShooter wallet (4 8GB, 4
4GB, 4 2GB CF cards, 1 8GB, 1 4GB SDHC cards)
- Sony
laptop computer
- Apple iPhone 3G
The following
was packed in my checked luggage:
- Tripod & Monopod
- RRS LH-55 ballhead
- Wimberley Sidekick
- Sensor
cleaning kit
- 2 Pocket Wizard MultiMax units
- 2
packs of AA batteries
- Chargers for D3/D40x
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Charger for Sony laptop
- ThinkTank Photo's Cable
Management 50 organizer |
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Further Information...
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