Just finished up our beluga whale and polar bear expedition out of Churchill, Canada, and all I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW! What an amazing trip. I have been trying to figure out what to write, and how to write it. The beluga boarding was beyond words amazing, and the polar bear action was… well I decided to write a blog about the bears first, because the different experiences were just so overwhelming for me. In a good way.
When I am out in nature and around wildlife, it recharges my damaged soul. I realize how much I need to be around animals. However, sometimes it can over power my senses and I get lost on how to feel, because the fire is so strong. So sometimes nature leaves me emotionally drained.
This week was one of those trips that leaves me drained (in a good way). So many amazing moments out there, I wasn’t sure what to share, so I am sharing a few highlighted moments from this trip, that I will write over a few blogs for you guys.
For now… Day One!
We saw bears every day of the trip, both in the water, and on land. Some of the bears were probably the same bears from the previous days, so I am not really sure how many different bears we encountered. For sure 6 different ones. The number didn’t matter to me, just seeing one bear this trip would have been a thrill for me.
I mean it’s a freaking polar bear!
Polar bears are the largest land predators on the planet. They are massive animals. The largest sea bear ever recorded weighed more than two thousand pounds and stood twelve feet tall. Now that is a big bear.
It is so humbling seeing one of these bears up close… pure magic.
Our first day on the water we went out at the end of the day, and we encountered three bears on the rocks. One was in the water swimming, the others were on land, hunting for Arctic tern chicks. The birds were losing their minds, dive bombing on the bears. The bears would just continue sniffing around, every once in a while acknowledging the birds stabbing them in the head.
One of the bears we photographed was in the water, it was watching the belugas and the belugas were watching the bear. I do not think they felt threatened by the bear, because the whales were coming in close. The bear made one attempt to try and catch one, after that it returned to shore, and went after easier prey, Arctic tern chicks.
polar bear unsuccessfully stalking belugas.
We left the bears to go find belugas to photograph, but after we were done, we returned to the point right at sunset and found two of the three bears again. They were still there being harassed by the terns. We were just going to watch them for a few minutes and then call it a day, however, the sun was going down fast and the sky was turning gold. So instead of motoring back to port we asked Jostlen, our boat captain and guide to stay a bit longer.
Of course she said yes, and it became a mad rush to try and position our boat to get the bears with that beautiful light behind them.
She gave it a try. We motored our boat as close as we safely could to the point. There are lots of boulders just below the surface that we can not see, and smacking into one, right at sunset with sea bears around is not a smart thing to do. But she tried the best she could.
The light was fading fast and it really is a hurry up and wait game when it comes to wildlife photography. I was running out of time. The bears were in the right spot for a nice image, but were not perfectly positioned. They had their backs to the camera, or their head was down buried in the rocks.
It was a challenge.
Finally the two bears positioned themselves decently so that I could pop a couple of shots. Thankfully it worked and I was able to snap a couple of keepers. They were not perfect and I would of loved to have been closer to the animals. But that is nature and I will take what I can get.
We finished up our first day of the expedition. I was on fire thinking about the next few days and the adventure that was in front of us. I had no idea how amazing this week was going to be.
Until the next blog. Thanks for reading!