Another Day in Wintery Heaven

This morning dawned foggy and icy again.  So we are in a holding pattern waiting to see if the planes can make it to us.  It is a small 9 seater hopper plane from Churchill landing on a runway at the lodge that is only approached by line of site.  The ice in Churchill is also bad that they can’t even get out there.  

So, the morning will be spent watching for more polar bears.  The gorgeous little girl from last night seems to have come back.  She’s curled up just out side the dining area.  It’s hard not to give human emotions to a bear.  But based on her small size she seems so young, and maybe lonely after Mama booted her from the nest.  

As the day doesn’t seem promising for airplanes, but perfect for walking we went for another hike.  After going about 50m down the road way, we found Frack wandering back to the lodge.  So we turned back to follow him.  He got very curious about the shed and exploring the windows, and all of a sudden popped out around a corner towards us.  Frack just really seems to want some friends, so we had to drive him off.  The best part is that the group in the lodge got a video of us with him so close!

We stayed by the lodge to see what he would do next, and if the little Princess would spook, but he wandered north across the lagoon and she kept sleeping by the BBQ patio.   A few others decided to keep hiking, I was a little worn out from the heavy work my ankle is doing so I stayed back.  I was also just fascinated with Princess and watching her curled up so close to the lodge was amazing.

After lunch, as we were getting reading there were shouts of “Wolf on the runway! Wolf on the runway!” Everyone was falling over themselves to get outside to see.  Well, it wasn’t a wolf.  But it was a gorgeous red fox so no one was truly upset.  We got some great pictures before a small group headed out again to go to Two Bear Point.  The wind was a lot calmer but of course we had the icy fog to deal with, which isn’t great for photographs but makes for one hell of an atmosphere!  We didn’t see any bears or foxes out there today, but we saw lots of tracks.  There have also been so many wolf prints, but no wolves have wanted to make an appearance this trip. 

We climbed up to Two Bear Point, and then walked back along it to the lake at the north end of the runway.  As we were walking back along the runway we got updates of Frack in the area again.  We angled out across another pond to try to cut him off.  When we got close, there was another update that Princess had gotten up and was also moving towards us.  Curious to see how they would react to each other, we stopped near the road.  Princess noticed Frack first and made a hard turn and passed us by to get away from him.  When Frack noticed her, Princess was already on the move.  He tried to catch up to her, poor guy really just wants some friends.   

So we waited till he passed us by, and then headed back into the lodge for what would likely be our actual last dinner in Seal River.  It was delicious of course, then they showed us a movie called Field of Bones that was a self shot documentary of a Russian scientist who studied Polar Bears in Siberia.  It was interesting to see his experiences.  

A few more foxes, including a Cross Fox, came by the lodge to say good bye.  And then to bed, curled up with my polar bear hot water bottle dreaming of snuggly bears.