Day Twenty First Day in Churchill Manitoba

Day twenty was our first full day in Churchill Manitoba. We were a little more than tired after having arrived late to Churchill on the VIA rail train at 0900 hrs. The weather was cold but not too cold… yet. We knew it would be much cooler than we had experienced elsewhere on our globe trot to that point and we were right. Catherine was dressed for the weather in her snow pants and thick parka jacket. Tyler went with his new winter trench coat and toque and found the cold ripped right into him. Catherine’s choice of snow pants didn’t look overdone now!

Waiting for us was an employee from the Lazy Bear Lodge where we were to stay for the duration of our visit to Churchill. The lodge is just a short distance from the train station so you could walk but you probably wouldn’t want to at this time of year as the wind was hallowing and the snow was falling. We were taken on a short tour of the town and shown the major sites. It didn’t take long as the town is small in size and has less than 1000 people total living there. We were also instructed in some basic polar bear knowledge to keep us from being a statistic.

The Lazy Bear Lodge was a nice choice to stay at as the staff was friendly and the room was nice. The building was made from logs taken from standing timber after a forest fire. The room was of a nice size and had everything you could need for your stay – even though we wouldn’t be spending a whole lot time in the room. We tried to access the internet but it was not working. This is something the locals says happens often when the weather turns foul. This is a town only accessible by train or plane so that made sense and we expected to have no internet at all while there.

We spent most of our first day checking out the town site and the Eskimo Museum. The Eskimo Museum has the largest collection of Inuit art and artifacts in Canada. We spent a few hours there looking over the displays which included all types of carvings, tools, clothing, and even a stuffed polar bear and musk ox. Seeing the polar bear made us look forward to the tours starting the next day in which we would venture onto to the tundra in a tundra buggy vehicle in search of polar bears who were waiting for the ice to form on Hudson Bay. We were also hoping to see arctic foxes, owls, wolves and other arctic animals which can found in the Churchill area.

Tyler says of day twenty – I didn’t really know what to expect of Churchill but I had always wanted to venture there to see the polar bears. I was wondering why I couldn’t program our TomTom to give us driving directions there from Dauphin Manitoba – there are no roads going there! If I was to go there again I would fly instead of taking the train as it was just too long of trip with too few views along the way to make it worthwhile.

Catherine says of day twenty – It was friggin’ cold! I felt like a star when an employee of the lodge was waiting to personally greet us. Lazy Bear Lodge was a nice choice of a place to stay in Churchill. The Eskimo Museum was small in size but was packed full of art and great descriptions of what you were viewing. I liked the stuffed walrus with his big tusks.

Tags: Canada, catherine, churchill, dauphin, eskimo museum, hudson bay, inuit, lazy bear lodge, manitoba, polar bear, thompson, train, tyler, via rail, walrus