Train Journeys to see the Polar Bears
With a gentle tug, the train pulls out of Winnpeg station. You nestle into your seat, well positioned to observe the myriad ecosystems between the city of Winnipeg and the outpost of Churchill.
Crossing the vast plains, you pass through Portage la Prairie, then tiny settlements like Ochre River, Togo, Camsack, Veregrin and Mikado. Eventually you reach The Pas, on the bank of the Saskatchewan River, long a fur-trading settlement, but now a logging town. Untouched fresh-water lakes surround the tracks. Geese, teal and osprey nest in this habitat during the brief summer.
Soon you’ll enter a landscape of worn bedrock and muskkeg bog, populated by hardy ‘sphagnum’ moss and stunted trees, dwarfed by the long winters. Beyond the nickel-mining town of Thompson you’ll travel the final leg through the aptly named ‘Barren Lands’ to the end of the line, where only the hardiest life-forms survive.
It is here, beyond the tree-line, beyond the haze of everyday life, that you encounter the greatest land predator, he that hunts humans - the polar bear. Every summer, when the sea ice grows soft, the bears migrate south to forage on land. As the days shorten, they return north, waiting for the ice to form. Prowling, they congregate at the mouth of the Churchill river, exactly where you are.
Try and forget this vacation. We dare you.
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