Renée and Dave 43rd Anniversary Trip

 

We continue to “Live Our Dream” and celebrate our 43^rd Anniversary with a trip to the Pico Bonito National Park in Honduras.  We are staying at the Lodge at Pico Bonito and hope to see and photograph lots of wildlife and partake in various hikes and snorkeling at Cayos Cochinos , part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System.   

 

Land of the Ice Bear

We’re all familiar with the phrase, “If you build it, they will come”. How appropriate this quote turned out to be at a very remote arctic lodge in the middle of the tundra on Hudson Bay! A family built a very warm, hospitable lodge in an otherworldly white landscape in Northern Manitoba, and they came. Who are they? Polar bears and tourists came, and the visitors loved what they witnessed without disturbing the bears.

Our journey to the lodge began at 4:00AM with a flight from Winnipeg, Manitoba’s capital, to a small frontier town named Churchill, 3 hours north by air. Upon descending the steps of the plane onto an icy tarmac, an arctic blast of frigid air hit us in the face just to remind us where we were. We and the other 16 lodge guests collected our luggage and half of us transferred to a small single engine plane for the ½ hour flight to the lodge’s airstrip. The plane had to make 2 trips, since there was only room for 9 passengers, their bags and needed groceries and supplies for the lodge itself. The small plane is the lifeline for the lodge since there are no roads in this location. Anything too large to transport on the plane has to be delivered when the bay freezes over; then it can be trucked or sledged in over the ice.

Speaking of the bay freezing over, this event is largely responsible for the timing of our November trip. Polar bears hunt on the ice. It’s their habitat. So, from December, when the bay freezes, until spring when it melts, the bears are quite happy hunting and eating seals, their main food source. Once the bay thaws, the bears come onto land, and for about 5 or 6 months, depend on their fat reserves from their seal meals to live. They may occasionally find or scavenge something such as berries or seaweed, but by November they are pretty darned hungry! They head to the bay and wait for the water to freeze. The lodge has been strategically built just above the tide line on Hudson Bay near the Seal River, a known place that polar bears gather to go out hunting. So, I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising that within 15 minutes of arriving at the lodge, a polar bear sauntered by the building very nonchalantly as we were warming our hands with hot tea after just making the trek from the airstrip to the lodge. If we’d been just a few minutes later, we would have run into the bear as he was passing the front door.





This might be a good time to discuss how we weren’t substituted for a seal meal by the hungry bears. Apparently, in most cases polar bears don’t really see humans as food. They do however, have an extraordinary sense of smell and can smell food from about 10 miles away. Whenever we left the lodge grounds on our hikes, we were accompanied by two guide/naturalists who understand bear behavior, and have a retinue of deterrents, including a gun. We never felt threatened by any bear. Mostly, if a curious one was heading in our direction and got a little too close, a clap of the hands was enough to send it running in the other direction. A noise deterrent did have to be used once during our visit to scare a bear away from the owner’s private plane. The bear jumped up on the plane and seemed to want to raise a little havoc. He was scared away by the noise.



Our days began as daylight dawned around 8:00AM or 8:30AM. We would alight from our rooms and wander out to the lounge for coffee followed by breakfast in the dining room. The dining room had panoramic windows gazing out on an icy, arctic world. The colors, shapes and forms were of a place we’d never witnessed before. So many shades of gray—“Fifty Shades of Gray”—might do it justice. There was a deep gun metal gray of the sky before and after daylight and when cloudy. Gray tinged with blue, pink, mauve, yellow and gold were also in evidence as the sky kept changing and morphing with the time of day and the cloud cover. After breakfast, an announcement was made each morning detailing the morning activity. It was always an outside activity, sometimes a hike and sometimes, if the bears were active around the lodge, the activity would be centered nearby. So, we returned to our rooms and donned our layers of arctic gear. Multiple pairs of wool socks with foot warmers for our toes, arctic boots, snow pants, arctic coats, scarves, ear muffs, hats and hoods, and gloves—glove liners, hand warmers and finally outer ski gloves were put on. Once attired, we quickly went outside to avoid sweating under all those clothes. I couldn’t decide if I felt more like the Michelin Man, or I should pretend I was preparing for a moon walk. The temperatures were typically in the teens (Fahrenheit) with a stiff wind bringing the wind chill factor way down, how far down--I didn’t want to know. As the days passed, the temps actually rose a bit.



Since the outdoor activities were geared for photography, we tended to forget the cold as we set up our tripods and camera equipment and happily clicked away getting good images of the bears or the red foxes that were abundant. We had two professional photographers in the group who were helpful in advising us on our camera settings. There was also a BBC film crew attempting to get footage of the arctic foxes for a documentary series called “Survival”, set to air in 2014. Unfortunately, the arctic foxes are smaller than the red foxes and had been driven off by their larger cousins. Afternoons were similar to the mornings. We generally stayed outside anywhere from 2 to 4 hours. Once inside, we were greeted by hot beverages and a warm fire in the lounge. Meals were excellently prepared and delicious. We tried a few local delights such as moose tenderloin and a caribou appetizer. But on the whole, meals featured comfort food, and we marveled that in this wilderness, fresh fruits and vegetables were generously served at every meal. I brought back the lodge’s delicious recipe for granola and have already made it.





Each evening, as we enjoyed wine and hors d’oeuvres, a program was presented by one of the lodge naturalists or the BBC film crew. There was no TV or radio, so these programs were our entertainment. We also enjoyed interacting and conversing with the other guests, who all had similar interests to our own. Americans, Canadians, Australians and British folks composed the group of 18 with which we shared our experience. And as the day wound down, we returned to our cozy rooms to enjoy a good night’s sleep in the dark and silent northern night.



For more photos, please see our website, http://reneecapouya.zenfolio.com. Go to Canada, Churchill Polar Bear Safari. (http://reneecapouya.zenfolio.com/f990216655)


Or see a video clip @:  http://reneecapouya.zenfolio.com/p708147747#h4f81f890