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| The view outside the house where we are staying overnight |
I had an early wakeup and a quick breakfast in the hotel, and then it was back to the airport. I met up with my group and we flew up to Churchill, on the shores of Hudson Bay. Thea Bechshoft is a polar-bear expert from the University of Alberta,Jennifer Kay studies sea ice at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Alberta. Michael Furdyk, the leader of our group, runs TakingITGlobal, an online community that empowers young people to act on the worlds greatest challenges.TakingIT Global for Educators brings the values of global citizenship, environmental stewardship, and student voice to life in schools around the world through global collaboration and professional development for teachers.
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| Inukshuk on the shores of Hudson Bay |
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| An Inuit carving in the Eskimo Museum |
Churchill has been here since the 1600s, originally as a center for fur-trapping. Nowadays grain comes up here by freight train from points south in Canada to be loaded onto ships for transport all over the world. The sea ice is beginning to consolidate in Hudson Bay, and from the ruined fort at Cape Merry we saw the last freighter of the year, steaming for Nigeria. The other big thing in the town is, of course, the ecotourism industry revolving around the polar bears.
And there are a LOT of polar bears. They wander the tundra around Churchill, waiting for the sea ice to consolidate to the point that they can walk out onto the bay to hunt seals. Tourists pay top dollar to stay out in the field for a few days and view the bears. The town itself has 900 residents, and there are 900 polar bears in the area.
You can get to Churchill by air or by rail, but you cannot get here by road. The snow-swept streets are desolate, with one grocery, one hardware store, and one each of a few other things. The centerpiece of Churchill is The Complex, which houses the school, the hospital, a hockey rink, a bowling alley, and indoor playground, and a curling rink. The idea is to keep the children confined and safe from the polar bears. Right outside, on the shores of Hudson Bay, there is an inuksuk, or inukshuk, which is a cairn-like stone structure the Inuit have traditionally set up as navigational aids. We stopped to gaze at the sea-ice, and far in the distance we could just make out through binoculars a mother bear and her two cubs.
We visited the Eskimo Museum and saw beautiful carvings and, somewhat incongruously, fabulous Paleozoic fossils from the area.
We spent much of the day planning the program of webcasts we will stream to K–12 from a tundra-buggy starting Tuesday—more about that over in the next days’ entries. With all the late nights and early wakeups, we are exhausted and turning in early.
-Rich
And there are a LOT of polar bears. They wander the tundra around Churchill, waiting for the sea ice to consolidate to the point that they can walk out onto the bay to hunt seals. Tourists pay top dollar to stay out in the field for a few days and view the bears. The town itself has 900 residents, and there are 900 polar bears in the area.
You can get to Churchill by air or by rail, but you cannot get here by road. The snow-swept streets are desolate, with one grocery, one hardware store, and one each of a few other things. The centerpiece of Churchill is The Complex, which houses the school, the hospital, a hockey rink, a bowling alley, and indoor playground, and a curling rink. The idea is to keep the children confined and safe from the polar bears. Right outside, on the shores of Hudson Bay, there is an inuksuk, or inukshuk, which is a cairn-like stone structure the Inuit have traditionally set up as navigational aids. We stopped to gaze at the sea-ice, and far in the distance we could just make out through binoculars a mother bear and her two cubs.
We visited the Eskimo Museum and saw beautiful carvings and, somewhat incongruously, fabulous Paleozoic fossils from the area.
We spent much of the day planning the program of webcasts we will stream to K–12 from a tundra-buggy starting Tuesday—more about that over in the next days’ entries. With all the late nights and early wakeups, we are exhausted and turning in early.
-Rich
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| Visitors to the old English fort at Cape Merry are protected by a ranger with Parks Canada |
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