Why would someone, anyone want to go to Churchill?
This is not the normal place you think of when you contemplate travel in Canada. It’s not the usual vacation that involves the warm sun and a balmy breeze but this instead subjects you to bone-chilling cold and snowdrifts that could reach your eyebrows in a second.
Yet go to this wintry place people do, and they enjoy themselves immensely. It makes people think of stories of the Snow Queen and you can imagine the tale being based on such a place as this.
But what do you do in all that snow? Why, explore, of course! A word of warning, though. Never go around without a guide as a snowstorm can blow up at any moment and polar bears walk around freely beyond the limits of Churchill, sometimes inside them, too. It’s just what you would expect in a day in the wild.
One attraction close by is a downed plane named “Miss Piggy,” so called because of the large amount of cargo the plane could carry. It had crashed in 1979 but was not removed because of the damage the salvaging would bring to the area. You can have a guide take you there as one of the stops on a longer tour, since you’d only be able to peek into the plane. More thrilling may be the polar bear tracks that you will spot on the way to the plane itself.
Of course, most of the people that visit are there to see the polar bears, not the sedate bears one sees in the zoos but the real, live animal in the wild. And they are magnificent. The only way to see them safely is on a tundra buggy and you can choose between a day trip and one that will take you out for several nights. It may be a bit costly but you wouldn’t want to save money when you’re dealing with both unpredictable weather and polar bears.
You may want to catch nature’s own light show and watch the Aurora Borealis if you’re there at the right time. Even if it involves leaving very early in the morning and standing outside in freezing temperatures, it is definitely worth it. Awesome would not be description enough.