Travelin' Fullers Blog: A Close Encounter With Two Polar Bears

The ISo our group of 14 enthusiastic polar bear viewers were convinced that we could not top yesterday's adventure! However, we all agreed that was incorrect! Today was considerably colder with grey skies and blowing snow but we had spectacular new adventures with the polar bears!

Our trusty rover driver, Arner, lovingly guided our rover over the bleak and bumpy terrain to a flat area not far from the Tundra Lodge (a lodge on wheels that is brought out to a designated spot each season). We are staying in the town of Churchill in what is considerably more "luxurious " accommodations. The Lodge on wheels has one person per tiny cubicle. It's sort of like a short train on wheels. At any rate, we spotted a lone bear just relaxing on the side of our "trail" path. Arner got us fairly close and we just kept watching this male. Suddenly, the male bear got up and began walking toward our rover. Oh my gosh, he was right next to us! The Rover has a back wire mesh deck that we can stand on to take photos. This bear was SO interested in our rover. He even walked directly under our feet on the back deck of the rover. If it were allowed, we could have reached down and touched his fur. (Definitely not allowed though). While this first guy was checking us out, low and behold, here comes his friend! He was curious to see what we were all about. There was some thought that they may have picked up the scent of our onboard latrine, even though it is totally encased. But for whatever reason, after a brief nose to nose greeting, these two males gave us a thorough once over! I wonder what they thought of the thousand of clicking noises they heard from our cameras! But not only did the two bears spend a great deal of time under and next to our rover, when they finally decided to leave, they gave us an amazing show of "Play sparring" for a long time. They go nose to nose as they walk until both males suddenly rear up on their hind legs and begin a series of bear wrestling moves each trying to get the other guy down! This was done out of boredom and was totally play. However, it does give them practice for when it becomes more serious during the mating season! We watched this show for a couple of hours while we had lunch!

As we moved a little further on, we came upon a mother with two cubs. Suddenly, a big male wandered into the area. As soon as mom saw him , she and the cubs took off running! Although unusual, if a male is hungry enough he can be a threat to the cubs. Hence the reason mom scurries away. Just last week, a male attacked one of two cubs and killed it. Mom took off with the other cub.

Fred told us how rare it was for TWO bears to come up so close to the Rover. It was the first time it has happened this season. It was also quite unusual to see the lengthy sparring of the two males. It's unusual because they are usually so hungry at this time of year that they won't expend the energy or the calories.

Those were two AMAZING highlights of the day. We had a wonderful dinner at the famous Gypsy's back in Churchill. Tomorrow we have a helicopter tour if the winds calm down. (Today there were guests of 40mph). We will board our charter at 2:00pm for the flight back to Winnipeg....

What a phenomenal trip this has been. We were incredibly lucky with everything! Animal sightings, animal behavior, great educational guide and a terrific rover driver made everything just perfect. Could not have asked for anything more!