2013/08/01: Churchill

It’s somehow weird: Churchill is famous all over for being the world’s polar bear capital. From Rough Guide to Spotlight Magazine, everybody tells you to go there for seeing Canada’s wildlife and especially for seeing polar bears. After a two-day’s train ride you arrive there, somewhere in the middle of the tundra, where only some hundred people and even fewer trees are living a hard life, and what happens? Suddenly polar bears are dangerous. Everybody, from tourist agency to Eli, tells you that a polar bear will kill you if it sees you, that you shouldn’t go there and you shouldn’t visit this, that you shouldn’t walk to Cape Merry Battery without having a gun, that you should always watch a car where you could flee to if a bear appears (cars are never locked, you can’t steel a car here anyway, as there are no roads leading to any point farer away than the twin lakes some 25 kilometers south of Churchill). To sum it up: as any kind of organized tours would have been too expensive, I was locked in a village of 900 people for the whole day, scared of walking anywhere (bears can suddenly appear wherever you are), a little bit pissed off by the weather (9 degrees Celsius, strong wind, light rain), but still happy to be there. I visited everything the tourist agency recommended (the cafeteria of the hospital – yes, it is affordable. But it is still inside a hospital; the library – I’m convinced it is a great place to check your mails. But due to illness of the employee it was closed today; the Eskimo Museum – yes, the artefacts are fascinating. But as it is only one room I didn’t manage to stay longer than one hour). Sounds quite negative, but it’s been a great experience to walk around in this strange village, feeling like I reached the edge of the world (in fact Churchill is still in the southern half of Canada!!!).
I also visited the exhibition in the Parks Canada Visitor Reception Centre. I liked that it was not only a we-have-the-most-beautiful-nature-in-the-world-come-and-see-it-exhibition, but also a birds-don’t-come-from-Southern-America-to-Northern-Canada-in-summer-any-more-if-there-stopover-forest-in-Venezuela-will-be-destroyed-exhibition, a polar-bears-have-pesticides-in-their-brains-exhibition, a there-will-be-no-ice-for-the-polar-bears-be-left-if-we-continue-driving-cars-exhibition and a the-intensive-agriculture-in-their-wintering-ground-in-the-southern-United-States-exploses-the-population-of-snow-geese-which-has-troubling-implications-for-the-ecosystems-in-Northern-Canada-exhibition. Without being too accusing, the exhibition shows, how local actions can have global impacts. That’s what geography is about.
Having left the exhibition, I was back in the rent-a-pick-up-make-a-helicopter-tour-eat-meat-burn-oil-because-it’s-cheap-world big parts of North America and Western Europe (and more and more parts of Asia and Africa) belong to. We should change this world before it is too late. We don’t need to heat our flats up to 23 degrees, we don’t need to cool our trains down to 18 degrees, we don’t need to drive a car or eat meat every day (I’m working on that…), and if we really have to, it should be electric cars respectively organic meat.
I had these thoughts drinking a hot cappuccino at Gypsy’s bakery, the place everybody ends up sooner or later In Churchill. So did Eli. And so did some of his friends, amongst others Alex de Vries, the photographer of the postcards I’ll send to Germany in the next days.
After a walk along Churchill River – hoping in vain that I could see some Beluga whales and scared to death considering the fact that I could see a polar bear – I ended up at the Tundra pub, the place where Eli will have his gig tonight. Here I met almost everybody I met before in Churchill. After a warm tea, a warm soup and a cold beer I went together with Eli and Erin to Eli’s hotel room. Although it was the hotel room of a musician, we didn’t destroy anything. No sex, no rock’n roll, just my favorite drug, alcohol.
Still freezing, I’m sitting now onboard the train back to Winnipeg. Goodbye, sub-arctic climate, goodbye Eli, Eric and Alex, goodbye, you lovely awful polar bears. I’m happier that I didn’t see you than I’m disappointed that I didn’t see you.


We will arrive in Churchill soon:


It's very, very cold!


Much better!


The only polar bear I met (in the Eskimo Museum):


Ok, and I saw this one too:


Ok, this one too:


Ok, this one too:


There’s a beach on a sea which is frozen nine month a year. In the other three months you’re not allowed to go there because it’s too dangerous:


Road to nowhere:


This car is running on a railway track!


This bus shows the opposite of design:


This bus has been turned into a house


Is it a bad sign that there’s no rock?


Next to Churchill River:


A freight train going to the harbor


Hudon Bay Panorama


East Churchill Panorama


Churchill River panorama


Eli’s hotel room with its mini fridge