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Belugas, bears and blooms: why Churchill changes the way you see the world
- Dean Nelson, (he/him) CTC, LLD
- Aug 11
- 16 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
At the edge of Hudson Bay, a summer journey with Frontiers North Adventures became something much larger than a wildlife trip. Churchill made me think differently about climate change, conservation, Indigenous history, responsible tourism and our connection to the wild places we are in danger of losing.
A mother and her newborn calf surfaced beside our Zodiac.
Then another beluga appeared. And another.
Soon there were white backs breaking through the dark water in every direction, accompanied by the unmistakable sounds that have earned belugas the nickname “canaries of the sea.” Some surfaced at a distance. Others seemed intensely curious about these strange humans floating around their summer home.
There were hundreds of them.
Our estimate that day was more than 500 beluga whales, including mothers travelling with their newborn calves. From the Zodiac, their curiosity was unmistakable.
I had travelled to Churchill, Manitoba, expecting wildlife.
I was not prepared for how much Churchill would make me feel.
There are destinations where you return home with photographs, souvenirs and another pin on the proverbial map. Then there are places that quietly rearrange something inside you.
Churchill did that to me.
I left with thousands of photographs and videos, certainly, but also with a greater appreciation for how interconnected our natural world is, how quickly climate change is altering it, and how much responsibility we carry as travellers to protect the places we are privileged enough to experience.
I have come away believing Churchill belongs on every traveller's lifetime list.
Not as a trophy destination.
As an education.
Northbound to Hudson Bay's Churchill Belugas, Bears and Blooms
The adventure began in Winnipeg with Frontiers North Adventures' Belugas, Bears and Blooms, a six-night summer journey that brings together beluga viewing, Indigenous and cultural experiences, Prince of Wales Fort, dog carting and a full-day Tundra Buggy excursion into the Churchill Wildlife Management Area. Frontiers North currently operates the programme during July and August, timed around the beluga migration and summer bloom.
After breakfast, our group transferred to the private airstrip for our charter flight north.
As Winnipeg disappeared beneath us, I could see smoke from forest fires hanging across parts of the landscape.
Eventually the view changed.
Breaking through the clouds closer to Churchill, I was struck by the sheer amount of water below us. Lakes, ponds and rivers appeared scattered across the Canadian Shield, almost as though someone had shattered a giant mirror across the land. Between them were exposed rock, willow, tundra and pockets of white and black spruce.
And green.
So much green.
I had pictured the North in whites, greys and browns. Instead, summer had painted it electric.
Churchill sits where marine, tundra and northern boreal environments meet, which helps explain the extraordinary concentration of wildlife and plant life found around the community. The Churchill Northern Studies Centre documents more than 500 varieties of vascular plants in the region.
This was my first lesson.
The Arctic and sub-Arctic are not empty.
They are complicated, productive, living systems.
As for my other pre-trip expectation?
I had prepared for insects with the strategic intensity of someone heading into battle.
Peppermint oil. Citronella. DEET. A mesh bug shirt. Mosquitoes, black flies, horseflies, deer flies and no-see-ums had all received starring roles in the horror movie playing in my imagination.
I am delighted to report the mesh shirt remained unemployed.
Churchill feels different from the beginning
Driving into town, Churchill somehow felt both unfamiliar and nostalgic.
I grew up for a time in Swan Hills, Alberta, in grizzly country, and those old instincts came rushing back when I started seeing warnings about polar bears and the need to remain bear aware.
The town itself felt colourful and lived-in. Murals covered walls and buildings. Images of polar bears, belugas and northern life appeared around corners. There was an unmistakable sense that the wildlife here wasn't kept behind a fence somewhere outside town.
It was part of town.
And sometimes, as I would soon learn, it could be lying almost invisibly among the rocks a surprisingly short distance away.
That changes the way you move through a place.
The guide who connected the dots
Walking into a room full of strangers at the beginning of a group trip can be intimidating, but it did not take long before conversations started, friendships began to form and everyone was buzzing about what might lie ahead.
One couple had travelled with Frontiers North twice before, once during winter northern-lights season and again during the autumn polar-bear migration. Now they had returned to see Churchill in summer.
That told me something before we had even started.
This is not a one-season destination.
Then there was Mark, our Frontiers North (FNA) interpretive guide.
Mark became one of the most important parts of the journey for me.
He is deeply knowledgeable about polar regions, particularly Churchill, and could move effortlessly from polar-bear biology to belugas, birds, botany, the fur trade, Indigenous history and the complicated human stories of Canada's North.
What I appreciated most was his approach to storytelling.
With his background in law, he was deliberate about separating fact from embellished folklore. Yet his delivery never felt like a lecture.
More importantly, he was willing to speak about difficult chapters of Canadian history without becoming defensive or performative. He created room for curiosity and thoughtful questions while reminding us that understanding a destination means listening to stories that may be uncomfortable.
Over the week, those connections became increasingly important.
Sea ice was connected to bears.
The estuary was connected to belugas.
Tiny flowers were connected to insects and migratory birds.
Murals were connected to community history.
Caribou were connected to Dene history.
Tourism was connected to conservation.
Eventually Churchill itself began to feel less like a collection of attractions and more like one enormous living system.
When hundreds of belugas surround you
If polar bears are Churchill's celebrities, summer belongs to the belugas.
We experienced them from several perspectives, including Zodiac, larger boat and kayak.
Each was different.
From a larger vessel, you begin to understand the scale of the gathering.
From a Zodiac, everything becomes more intimate.
From a kayak, you suddenly realize there is very little separating you from an enormous marine mammal beyond a thin hull, cold water and your rapidly accelerating heartbeat.
What fascinated me was that we did not need to chase the whales.
They came to us.
Belugas surfaced beside the boats, followed us, investigated us and sometimes seemed every bit as interested in the peculiar creatures above the water as we were in them.
Responsible wildlife tourism matters enormously here.
Our marine excursions were operated with Sea North Tours, Frontiers North's local marine partner. Sea North says its vessels use either jet-drive motors or propeller guards so that there are no exposed moving propeller blades beneath the water. The company says it was the first Churchill River and Hudson Bay whale-watching operator to introduce Prop Guards.
That might sound like a small technical detail until a beluga swims directly behind the boat.
Then it becomes the entire point.
Getting close to wildlife should never mean placing wildlife at unnecessary risk.
That distinction followed me throughout Churchill. The best encounters happened when the animals controlled the encounter.
We watched.
They decided whether to approach.
And approach they did.
Add harbour seals and yet more polar-bear sightings along the shoreline, and our days on the water became some of the most extraordinary wildlife experiences I have ever had.
Let the blooms steal a little of the spotlight
It would be easy for a trip called Belugas, Bears and Blooms to let the first two steal the show.
Then you look down.
Fireweed. Paintbrush. Sea-shore chamomile. Mountain avens. Lady's slipper orchids.
Cottongrass. Wild calla. Tiny carnivorous sundews.
Plants survive here with remarkable determination, squeezing an entire growing season into a short northern summer.
The Churchill region contains an astonishing mixture of plant communities because it sits at the transition between boreal forest and Arctic tundra.
Once Mark started pointing them out, the tundra stopped looking like a carpet of generic green.
There were miniature worlds everywhere.
That, too, became part of Churchill's lesson in interconnection.
Flowers feed insects. Insects feed birds. Berries feed wildlife. Vegetation provides habitat. The timing of growth, migration, ice and water affects what comes next.
Pull hard enough on one ecological thread and eventually something moves elsewhere.
Fourteen polar bears in summer
Then came our Tundra Buggy day.
Expectations had been carefully managed.
The great congregation of polar bears for which Churchill is famous happens later in the year, when bears gather along the Hudson Bay coast waiting for sea ice to form so they can return to hunting seals.
In summer, many bears remain associated with the remaining ice as long as conditions allow before coming ashore.
So we knew polar bears were possible.
We certainly did not expect fourteen.
One of our returning Frontiers North travellers had previously described polar bears coming right up to the Tundra Buggy during the autumn season, including one standing beneath the rear observation deck and apparently attempting to lick the bottom of her boots.
With that image firmly installed in my brain, we rolled out onto the tundra.
And then it happened.
We encountered a remarkable gathering of bears, including mothers with cubs and several younger males, resting, moving and playing across the landscape. Even Mark and our Tundra Buggy driver were struck by seeing so many animals concentrated in one area this early in the season.
There are moments when a camera becomes inadequate.
This was one of them.
I photographed furiously, of course, but periodically I forced myself to lower the camera.
Just look.
A polar bear walking through its natural environment has an entirely different power from seeing one in captivity.
There is no enclosure telling you where the animal's world ends and yours begins.
You are in its world.
That realization carries weight.
The quiet hum of an electric Tundra Buggy
We were travelling aboard one of Frontiers North's electric Tundra Buggies, and the difference became apparent once we were away from town.
Instead of a diesel engine dominating the soundtrack, there was a quieter mechanical hum.
I could hear birds.
Water splashed beneath the enormous tires as we crossed tundra ponds.
Rocks shifted beneath us.
People could talk without fighting an engine.
Frontiers North says it currently has three EV Tundra Buggies and estimates that operating each electric vehicle eliminates about 15.74 tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions over an operating year. The company also reports using Manitoba hydroelectricity as part of the transition away from fossil fuels.
Frontiers North has been a Certified B Corporation since April 2020, something independently confirmed by B Lab.
No tourism operation is impact-free. We flew north. Vehicles moved us around. Boats carried us onto the water. Food and supplies had to reach one of Canada's most remote communities.
That is exactly why I appreciated seeing tangible attempts to reduce impact rather than simply hearing the word “sustainable” used as marketing confetti.
Electric vehicles matter.
Marine propeller protection matters.
Local partnerships matter.
Education matters.
Progress does not require pretending tourism has no footprint. It requires acknowledging the footprint and working to make it smaller.
Our Buggy itself was remarkably comfortable, with huge windows, elevated sightlines, an outdoor observation platform and, importantly during an all-day excursion, a proper toilet.
Tea appeared during breaks.
Then lunch.
Then more tea.
At some point I graduated to a Moccha-Rula, coffee mixed with hot chocolate and a generous pour of Amarula.
We were on safari, after all.
Tundra Buggy - Dan's Diner dining hall Specially designed Tundra vehicle to view polar bears safely Tundra Buggy - Dan's Diner dining hall
Foxes, caribou and the birding Olympics
Polar bears may have been the headline act, but the tundra kept handing us supporting characters.
We found a den area where red foxes lounged in the sun, chased insects and wrestled with each other, apparently quite comfortable with their temporary career as models for the Tundra Buggy paparazzi.
Then came caribou, some already shedding their winter coats.
And birds.
So. Many. Birds.
We had several serious birders aboard.
Their enthusiasm was infectious, although occasionally incomprehensible to those of us whose field-identification skills are closer to “bird,” “large bird” and “definitely not a bear.”
Suddenly someone would shout for Mark after spotting another species and binoculars would swing across the Buggy.
Among our sightings were Arctic terns, Pacific loons, common eiders, snow geese, Canada geese, Hudsonian godwits, willow ptarmigans, bald eagles, Nelson's sparrows and even a great blue heron.
I found myself laughing at the excitement.
Then participating in it.
Churchill does that.
You arrive wanting polar bears and belugas.
A few days later you are emotionally invested in a ptarmigan.
Climate change stops being abstract
This is where Churchill became something more profound for me.
Climate change is easy to discuss in abstract language.
Degrees.
Graphs.
Models.
Targets.
Dates far enough into the future that they can feel comfortably distant.
Then you stand in polar-bear country.
Western Hudson Bay polar bears depend on seasonal sea ice to hunt seals. Polar Bears International reports that the region's ice-free period is now roughly three to four weeks longer than it was in the early 1980s. Its current Western Hudson Bay profile lists the population at 618 bears based on the 2021 survey and describes the population as very likely declining.
Suddenly sea ice is not an abstract climate indicator.
It is dinner.
It determines how long a bear can hunt and how long it may have to fast on land.
It affects body condition, reproduction and survival.
And those connections do not stop with polar bears.
Churchill's tundra is underlain in places by permafrost. Northern infrastructure has been engineered around frozen ground for generations, and Transport Canada has specifically identified climate change and discontinuous permafrost as challenges facing the Hudson Bay Railway.
During our visit, a freight derailment disrupted the rail line, another reminder of how consequential transportation infrastructure is in a remote northern community. I would not claim that our particular derailment was caused by climate change without evidence. The larger vulnerability of northern rail infrastructure to changing permafrost and extreme conditions, however, is well documented.
Churchill made climate change tangible.
Once you have watched a polar-bear mother with her cubs, “protecting sea ice” no longer sounds like an environmental slogan.
It has a face.
Several, actually.
Living with polar bears
Churchill also taught me that conservation is rarely as simple as “leave wildlife alone.”
People live here.
Bears live here.
Sometimes they want the same piece of geography.
Manitoba's Polar Bear Alert Program exists to reduce dangerous encounters while protecting both people and bears. Wildlife officers maintain a control zone around Churchill, respond to bear reports and first try to move animals away using deterrence. Bears that persist may be captured and temporarily placed in the Polar Bear Holding Facility before being released away from the community or back onto the sea ice when conditions permit.
Yes, it is the building everyone casually calls the Polar Bear Jail.
And yes, there is a fabulous giant polar-bear mural painted across it.
The important part is what the facility represents.
Coexistence takes work.
It requires residents to change behaviour, manage attractants, report bears and respect boundaries.
Visitors must do the same.
On our sub-Arctic safari, we came across a polar bear so well camouflaged among a field of pale boulders that it could easily have been overlooked.
That moment explained every warning sign in town.
You do not casually wander into polar-bear country because you cannot see a bear.
Sometimes the bear is already there.
The stories painted across Churchill
Churchill's wildlife may bring many travellers north, but its people make the destination whole.
The SeaWalls Churchill murals became one of my favourite surprises.
The 2017 project placed murals across roughly 30 kilometres of the Hudson Bay shoreline, with works inspired by artists' interactions with residents, local history and issues facing the community.
Once Mark began explaining the artists and the stories behind the paintings, they stopped being colourful Instagram backgrounds.
They became another way of reading Churchill.
Art speaks here about oceans, wildlife, community, isolation, resilience and belonging.
That mattered especially when we began discussing the history of Indigenous peoples in the region.
Listening to the harder history
Churchill's history long predates the arrival of Europeans.
Parks Canada notes archaeological evidence of human presence in the area going back thousands of years. Dene, Cree and Inuit peoples were central to trade, travel and survival long before and throughout the Hudson's Bay Company period.
Some of the history Mark shared was considerably harder to hear.
In 1956, the Government of Canada relocated the Sayisi Dene from their homeland at Little Duck Lake. Community members were eventually moved to Churchill, where Canada now acknowledges they experienced deplorable living conditions, hardship, death and profound loss.
Members returned to their traditional territory and established themselves at Tadoule Lake in 1973. Canada formally apologized in 2016.
It is impossible to tell Churchill's story responsibly while leaving that chapter out.
The Sayisi Dene First Nation Relocation Settlement Trust now supports community-led priorities. Its published projects include healthy-food subsidies in Tadoule Lake, education initiatives, community infrastructure and work toward post-secondary education and training support.
This was another reason I appreciated Mark.
He did not turn Indigenous history into a quick cultural anecdote between wildlife excursions.
He gave it space.
Travel should do that more often.
Dogs, Métis stories and a stone fort
Our itinerary also included Wapusk Adventures, where Métis musher Dave Daley and his team introduce travellers to dog sledding, Métis culture and northern life.
Dave founded the Hudson Bay Quest in 2004, a long-distance dog-sled race associated with Churchill and northern Manitoba.
The dog-carting itself was enjoyable, although for me it did not carry the emotional punch of the belugas or polar bears. What interested me more was learning about the dogs, northern mushing traditions and the cultural history surrounding them.
Then there was Prince of Wales Fort.
Reaching it by boat already feels suitably adventurous.
The enormous stone structure stands near the mouth of the Churchill River, where the Hudson's Bay Company began constructing a stone fortification in the 18th century. Parks Canada tells a much broader story than simply British traders building walls. Dene and Cree families supplied food, clothing, knowledge, guiding and other support that was fundamental to the fur-trade economy in this region.
Standing inside those walls with Hudson Bay stretching beyond them adds another layer to Churchill.
Nature and human history continuously overlap here.
Hospitality at the edge
Travel in a remote destination requires some perspective.
Our accommodation was clean and comfortable, and during the trip we were able to preview new rooms being added to the Tundra Inn. They had a fresh, contemporary feel and should be a welcome addition to Churchill's limited room inventory.
The food impressed me.
Getting fresh ingredients and supplies to a community this remote presents obvious logistical challenges, yet meals were consistently good.
Restaurant service could be slow, particularly considering we often pre-ordered the night before, but it was a relatively minor frustration in the context of the entire experience.
This is worth remembering when travelling north.
If you arrive expecting a conventional luxury resort experience, you are asking Churchill to be something it is not.
The luxury here is access.
A mother beluga and calf beside your Zodiac.
A polar bear stretching in the summer sun.
A fox tumbling across the tundra.
An Indigenous storyteller sharing their community's history.
A guide who helps you understand why all of it matters.
That is a different definition of luxury, and a rather compelling one.
Tundra Inn Tundra Inn Standard room; double and queen bed Tundra Inn Standard room Tundra Inn bathroom amenities - will be moving away from single use plastics Tundra Inn Standard room bathroom Trout Poke bowl charcuterie board falafel bowl Chocolate dessert Eggs benedict New wing of the Tundra Inn - 2nd bunk room New wing of the Tundra Inn - 2nd floor view room New wing of the Tundra Inn - standard bathroom New wing of the Tundra Inn - Wheelchair accessible bathroom
Stewardship has to be a verb
One reason I wanted to travel with Frontiers North was to understand how its environmental commitments translated from corporate language into the guest experience.
B Lab confirms Frontiers North has maintained Certified B Corporation status since 2020. The company says its approach includes local and Indigenous purchasing, emissions tracking, wildlife-safety procedures, community programmes and investment in conservation.
Frontiers North has also supported Polar Bears International since 2001 and provides infrastructure and access that helps support research, education and live broadcasts from the Churchill tundra.
I appreciated that stewardship showed up in things we could actually see.
An electric Tundra Buggy.
Whale-safe marine equipment.
Interpretive guiding.
Wildlife protocols.
Indigenous-led programming.
Conservation partnerships.
Community stories that were allowed to be complicated.
None of that makes travel impact-free.
It makes the impact part of the conversation.
That matters.
Why I believe everyone should experience Churchill
Before this journey, Churchill sat on my travel list because of polar bears and beluga whales.
I came home thinking about something much larger.
I keep returning to one question:
What would happen if more people experienced nature this closely?
Would we think differently about the energy we consume?
Would climate change feel less political and more personal?
Would protecting wetlands, oceans, forests, tundra and sea ice feel less like somebody else's responsibility?
Would we become more curious about the Indigenous peoples who have understood and lived within these environments for generations?
Would we become better travellers?
Perhaps.
I know Churchill changed something in me.
When you look into the landscape and see a polar bear where moments earlier you saw only rocks, you understand how little you notice when you move too quickly.
When hundreds of belugas surround your boat and mothers guide newborn calves through the estuary, conservation stops being an abstract idea.
When a guide points to a tiny tundra flower and then explains how that plant fits into the ecosystem around it, the word interconnected suddenly has roots.
When you hear the history of the Sayisi Dene while standing in the place where part of that history unfolded, reconciliation becomes more than a word encountered in a corporate statement.
And when you watch people in Churchill actively working to coexist with one of the world's most powerful predators, you understand that protecting wildlife also involves communities, infrastructure, education, research, respect and compromise.
Churchill does not offer easy answers.
It offers perspective.
Go, but go thoughtfully
Frontiers North's Belugas, Bears and Blooms programme combines many of the experiences that made this journey so memorable: Zodiac beluga viewing, kayaking, Prince of Wales Fort, Indigenous cultural interpretation, dog carting, the Parks Canada Visitor Centre, the Itsanitaq Museum and a Tundra Buggy day in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area. Wildlife sightings are never guaranteed, of course. Our departure was extraordinarily fortunate.
That uncertainty is part of travelling into nature.
The bear does not receive your itinerary.
The beluga has not read your bucket list.
Nature owes us nothing.
Perhaps that is exactly why these encounters feel so valuable when they happen.
Come prepared for weather that changes its mind.
Bring binoculars.
Bring extra camera batteries.
Bring layers.
Bring insect repellent, even if your magnificently unfashionable mesh bug shirt never leaves your luggage.
Follow bear-safety instructions.
Listen to your guides.
Ask questions.
Learn the names of a few flowers.
Look up from the camera.
Spend money locally.
Respect the people whose home you are visiting.
Most importantly, arrive curious.
Leaving Churchill
Eventually our charter lifted away from Churchill and the tundra began shrinking beneath us.
There were photographs to edit, videos to sort and stories to tell.
But Churchill had given me something considerably harder to file neatly onto a hard drive.
Gratitude.
For wild animals still living wild.
For people working to protect them.
For Indigenous voices willing to share difficult histories.
For guides such as Mark who understand that interpretation is about connecting facts until they become meaning.
For communities willing to welcome strangers into extraordinary places.
And for the reminder that we are not separate from nature, regardless of how effectively our cities sometimes allow us to pretend otherwise.
Everything is connected.
The beluga to the estuary.
The bird to the insect.
The flower to the tundra.
The polar bear to the seal.
The bear to the sea ice.
The community to the railway.
The visitor to the place.
And all of us to the climate.
That may be Churchill's greatest gift.
I went north hoping to see belugas, bears and blooms.
I found all three in abundance.
I came home understanding why they need us to care.
And beaming with gratitude that places like Churchill still exist.
Go once in your lifetime if you can. Go thoughtfully. Go with your eyes open.
You may arrive looking for polar bears.
You may leave seeing the world a little differently.
Are you ready to go beyond? Book your Frontier North Adventure today. Click here to set up a consultation or to book today.
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October - November is prime Polar Bear Season
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