Day 3

Today we flew to Churchill, which means our polar bear adventure REALLY begins.  Not that standing around in -18F weather isn’t an adventure, it’s just not the adventure we were looking for.  The day started off with a flight from Winnipeg to Churchill.  Churchill is so remote (how remote is it, you ask?); it’s so remote, there are no roads going into it.  You can only go by rail, a 2½ day journey, or fly in, which is aboot (that’s Canadian for about) 3 hours.  Truthfully, we would have gotten there in a little over 2 hours, but the plane had a broken seat – ours. 

Our entire row of seats was not bolted down in the track, so when you reclined the seat, they really reclined, ending up into the lap of the people sitting behind us.  This lounging position was fine with us, but the other passengers weren’t as happy with it.  After 10 minutes of the mechanic working on it, he thought he fixed it, so we sat back down.  This time, Mary’s side of the row was bolted down and mine was still loose.  20 minutes and 2 mechanics later, they got it fixed by moving the seats up in the track, which meant we had even less legroom than before.  Since we wanted to leave soon and go look for bears without any more delays, we didn’t mention to the mechanics the only toilet on the plane didn’t flush, and the a/c didn’t work, so it was very hot for the entire flight - the only time on this trip we've been warm.

Since I want to keep this entire story as positive as possible, I won’t mention the roast beef sandwich Mary had for lunch, which was 97% bread and 3% sliced meat, with nothing else on it.  Nor will I mention my Fettuccini Pomodoro where the sauce was either straight tomato paste or had ketchup added to it, I’m not sure which.  Either way, not so good.

The rest of the day we spent getting settled in, hearing a talk from our guide on polar bears, having dinner and going out on a "Double Top Secret Photo Op".  I could tell you what we did, but I'd have to kill you.  Actually, it wasn't that top secret.  We took night photos of an Inukshuck, which was used by the Inuit natives for navigation, a point of reference or as a marker.  This picture was taken at night, with nothing but starlight and a long exposure.  Tomorrow we hit the tundra in search of polar bears.