Becky and I, along with Becky's parents, Larry and Doris, went to find out everything about Churchill, Manitoba, Canada and polar bears. We took an eight-day Tundra Lodge and Town Adventure offered by Natural Habitat Adventures (NHA), a tour based in the town of Churchill with a couple of nights on the "Tundra."
Larry, Doris, Becky, and Tom. The travel companions. |
First, getting to Winnipeg
We are off on our adventure! The first adventure is getting there. Up at 4:30 AM, out the door at 5:30 and off to pick up Larry and Doris at 6:00, and at the airport around 6:30. We checked in, got through security (with extra screening for me due to the metal parts in my body) with plenty of time and caught our 8:25 AM flight to Denver, everything running smoothly.
Well, nothing can run smoothly all day on a travel day! In Denver, we had a planned hour and forty-five-minute layover before our 1:30 PM flight out of Denver to Winnipeg, Canada. The first minor hiccup came when we saw the flight was delayed to 2:30. Apparently, United had trouble with their plane or lost it somewhere and they were trying to find a plane to take us to Winnipeg. The flight was run by SkyWest, the plane was a smaller Canadair plane, part of the United Express commuter fleet.
They kept looking and looking for their plane but couldn't find it. Well, while they were looking for their plane, we were looking for our gate. If you are familiar with the nice Denver Airport terminals, there is a long, wide, modern "B" concourse with shops and eateries in the middle and moving walks to run you from one end to the other. Oh, but at the far end, there are stairs leading down to the dungeon; more gates in the dark, cramped, mostly forgotten smaller jet commuter area with walk-outside ramps up to the planes. We found our gate!
United's search for the plane stretched from 2:30, to 2:55, and then 3:16 PM. Finally, they found the plane. They rushed through boarding to get us on our way, finally. Almost. We were told there would be a slight delay as they had to add oxygen because we were going to Canada. What? Canada has less oxygen than the US? I guess so because we needed to bring more oxygen. Does this have something to do with the tariffs that Trump placed on Canada? Immediately, I began to think "is there a new business opportunity here." Okay, we got more oxygen. We are off.
Not quite. They had to add more fuel to the plane because we were flying to Winnipeg and they required enough fuel to make it to an alternate airport, just in case. The alternate airport was North Dakota. The extra fuel makes sense. But extra fuel means extra weight. We are overweight. After running around figuring out what to do and some higher mathematics, they decided that they needed to get three people to "volunteer ($1,000 travel voucher, overnight hotel)" to get off. They found their three people, good. Well, they had to get their baggage off also. After a "complete" search of the cargo hold they found most of the bags; they couldn't find one of them. Okay, another search.
Finally, we took off a little after 4:30 PM, over three hours late, and made it to Winnipeg. We went through the automated immigration and customs in Canada, retrieved our luggage, met the NHA representative at the airport, transported to the Fort Garry Hotel, checked in, ate dinner, and crashed.
Although longer than expected, it wasn't too bad of a travel day. The short version is we entered a space-time wormhole early in the morning in Folsom and instantly emerged 13 hours later at The Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg.
Winnipeg
We spent a "buffer" day in Winnipeg, recouping and getting adjusted to the two-hour time change prior to our NHA Welcome Dinner at 7:00 PM.
We took the Winnipeg Trolley tour of the city and got an introduction to Winnipeg. Winnipeg at one time was the third largest city in Canada but is now the sixth with a population around 800,000.
The welcome dinner was good, and we met our tour guides, Fred and Teresa, and had a good introduction to our adventure and all the logistics. From here on, our 29 guests (tour max) were well taken care of with everything planned and full arrangements for our entire trip (quite a feat).
The polar bear tour season in Churchill is October-November. Natural Habitat Adventures runs several tours and accounts for the largest number of visitors with well over 1,000 visitors during the two-month period.
Location of Churchill on Hudson Bay |
The Fort Garry Hotel where we stayed the first and last two nights of our adventure. |
On the day before our polar bear adventure, we took a tour of Winnipeg. |
Continue - 2018 Polar Bear Adventure, part 2