Sled Dogs, Polar Bears, and Hardy People

Was the visit to Churchill, Manitoba, worth a full week, including a total of four nights on the train, and a pretty fair chunk of change?

Absolutely! It was an incredible experience and I couldn’t recommend it more enthusiastically.

The ride up and back on VIA Rail was very relaxed and enjoyable. I had my own compact room in a sleeping car and, as always, there were plenty of opportunities to meet some interesting people. For example, over one of the dinner meals I was seated with a Swiss man and his Austrian wife. He’s in the freight forwarding business and they now live in Toronto. The fourth member at the table was a burly farmer from Saskatchewan, who raises wheat, canola and peas, mostly for shipment to Asia. The two guys had a fascinating discussion about the problems of shipping grain and other bulk foodstuffs, and I chatted with the Austrian lady about the Lippenzahners, the famous performing white horses of Vienna. Tell me: When do you have a chance for something like that on an airplane?

Once in Churchill, I headed for the Bluesky Bed & Sled, a bed and breakfast run by Jenafor Azure, ably assisted in these busy days by her mother, who introduced herself to one and all as Grandma. Jenafor’s husband Gerald, is a famous musher and takes visitors on dog sled rides – or, if no snow, dog cart rides – pulled at a breakneck pace by eight of the 21 sled dogs they own. I have photos which I will post as soon as I get home and can sort them all out.

And on Thursday, out on the tundra in one of those ungainly buggies, we saw polar bears! Some at a distance, some up within a few feet of us, and – clearly the highlight of the day – two large male bears tumbling and tussling like to playful puppies … very, very big puppies. Again, I have photos and will post them shortly after I get back home.

Finally, one word about the weather up there on the shores of Hudson Bay: cold. No … for me, two words: damn cold! And yet, Jenafor and Gerald took it all in stride and went about their business without a second thought.

How cold was it, you ask? Well, when I boarded the VIA Rail train in Churchill on Thursday night for the trip back here to Winnipeg, the temperature was 16 degrees, there were snow flurries, and a 60 mph wind shrieking in off of Hudson Bay was driving that snow horizontally right down the length of the platform. I don’t even want to guess what the wind chill factor was!

Today, one of the VIA crew members received a radio message that over the past day-and-a-half, Churchill has been blanketed by one meter of snow! I’m pretty sure that means guests at the Bluesky B&B are getting rides on the sleds now instead of those carts.

Oh … and it means Gerald Azure is a happy camper.