Most polar bears are found within the Arctic Circle, though there are some polar bear populations further south in the Hudson Bay area of Northern Manitoba, Canada. But, for the most part, polar bears inhabit remote northern Arctic regions across five countries: the United States (Alaska, of course), northern Canada (the Canadian High Arctic is popular for polar bear sightings), remote Russia, Greenland, and Norway, specifically on islands such as Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago.

Most of these places are hard to reach and bear population is sparse and seasonal. Greenland, for example, only allows you to observe them on a boat. You cannot get close to the bears. People have spent days cruising around Greenland only to see one or two polar bears.

Hudson Bay area of Northern Manitoba, Canada is the only place you can get really close to the bears. Hudson Bay is the second largest bay in the world, second to the Bay of Bengal in Asia. The bear population is in the hundreds at Hudson Bay area. The bear season in Hudson Bay area is very predictable due to an unique geographic feature, making it an ideal place to see polar bears in the world. Hudson Bay sits on annual migration path of polar bears. In the summer, the bears move ashore and survive on stored fat until the following winter when they can hunt seals on the ice. These bears don’t eat anything for more than six months. In the winter, these bears live on the ice and hunt seals through the winter and into the summer. Pregnant females will remain on land in a maternity den to give birth. Cubs are nursed and kept in the den for several months until emergence in early February to late March when the family group moves out onto the ice to hunt seals. Every year around end of October and early November, polar bears migrate hundreds of miles from west to Churchill area waiting for the Hudson Bay to froze. Hundreds of polar bears will congregate to the Churchill Wildlife Management Area (CWMA) just outside of Churchill at that time. The Churchill Wildlife Management Area (CWMA) is a protected area in Manitoba, Canada that protects a variety of wildlife habitats, including polar bears. CWMA is a strip of land about 1-2 miles inland from the coast and spread out about 15 miles east of Churchill. These bears will cross the Hudson Bay as soon as the bay is frozen. All of the bears can be gone in 24 hours. So timing is critical in planning. If you arrived after the Bay is frozen, you wouldn’t see any bears. If you arrived too early, the bars are scattered to the far west areas from Churchill, you don’t see a huge polar bear population. The best time is the two weeks period right before the Bay is frozen. That turns out to the last week of October and the first week of November. You may want to err on the earlier side as you will literally see no bears at all if the Bay is already frozen. These two weeks are called “Bear Season” by the locals.

Lodging is the biggest issue when traveling to Churchill during the “bear season”. There are roughly 7 hotels and 5 B&B’s accommodating a crush of visitors in a town of about 900 people. All hotels and tours are booked out during the bear season. Some are booked over a year ahead. As an independent visitor you are competing for lodging with organized tours that are booking up blocks of rooms. If you wanted the best choices and flexibility, I would suggest you book at least six months in advance. Most of the accommodations are very basic. Expect to pay luxury hotel rates for these budget hotels during the bear season. I have stayed at Bear Country Inn and Iceberg Inn. They are only acceptable. Bear Country Inn’s owner also runs other business like car renting, etc. All of these inns can arrange tours for you. As said, however, good tours and tour companies are booked out way in advance. You may not have any choice left if you book tours after you check into the hotels.

Churchill Wildlife Management Area issued only three licenses to three tour companies to bring tourists to the Wildlife Management Area. These companies have custom made Tundra buggies that can traverse the tundra in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area (WMA) at the end of the road. The tundra is a treeless ecosystem with long, cold winters and short, chilly summers. They have 18 permits between them to access this area. For about $500 they will pick you up in town, bus you to the WMA, provide a day long tour of the tundra in their custom rigs, and bus you back to town. Frontiers North Adventures and Great White Bear Tours are two of these companies. The third one is Lazy Bear Lodge which only offers packaged tours. So you are essentially struck with the two Biggies. These tundra trucks are like army vehicles with two meters tall wheels and wide rims. Each one of them can hold up to 40 passengers with restroom and outdoor viewing platform in the back. The windows can be rolled down. You can go to the outdoor viewing platforms to take pictures or have unobscured views.

You can also stay in tundra areas in the wild. The two Biggies have Tundra Buggy Lodge inside Churchill Wildlife Management Area. These lodges are essentially a row of Tundra Trucks. One of them services as kitchen/dinner cart and others service as hotel rooms. They sell the lodge in 3 to 7 day packages coming with food, tours, rooms. You can view the bears right outside of your room window. Everyday, the tundra trucks will take you out to tundra and find bears around. I have found there are ten to twenty polar bears right at the tundra where they parked their lodge. You can easily observe the bear behaviors from your room window.

Yet another very expensive option is to stay in a real lodge built in timber and mortar in the wild. The only one in the CWMA area is called Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge by Churchill Wild. Churchill Wild is the company owns the lodge. It offers packaged tours as well. There is no road to the Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge so the company flys you in on helicopters. Their package also features fancy dinners as well.

I opted to stay in town. Churchill has only one “street”, The street is the highway that goes through the town. There are a few decent restaurants along the “street”. One of them is Lazy Bear Cafe. There is a good supermarket across the street.

How to get around and see things is the next piece of the trip. Most of people are taking day tour on Tundra Trucks as described. However, there are a few other options. There are also numerous tour companies that offer driving tours of the road accessible portions of that 15 mile strip of land along the coast in vans, small busses, and pickup trucks. Half day and full day trips are available. Once you finish some day tours in Tundra Trucks and vans, and you feel comfortable, you can access the same thing in a rental vehicle. The Bear Country Inn offers rental 4×4’s that you can use to go see bears and had just as much right to be there as tour companies, legally.

All of the options afford great sightings of polar bears – mom and cubs, sparring males, foxes, ptarmigan, arctic hare, ermine and northern lights. However, there are advantages and disadvantages of each option. Tundra Truck pretty much guarantees the sighting of polar bears and there are bears residing at CMWA all the time so I recommend to do a couple of them at beginning. The van and pickup tour can take you to other areas outside of CMWA for sight-seeing, but they may not see the polar bears in bad luck. The van and pickup can take you to the Itsanitaq Museum, Parks Canada museum, bear quarantining facility, Seawalls murals, the beaches, Ithaka wreck and Miss Piggy, Churchill Northern Studies Center, etc. It is not possible for the big Tundra Truck to visit these places. One day or two days on van and pickup is enough. With a rental, you have even more flexibility. You can do all the things a van can do plus more, for example, Polar Bear Alley, the beach, the Ithaka wreck, Bird Cove, Cape Merry, Gun Range, golf balls radio station. You can stay in the truck to photograph, rolling down windows and gave the bears a wide berth, for as long or as short as you wanted.

You can take a helicopter ride over the Hudson Bay. The pilot will fly you over Wildlife Management Area and Cape Churchill to areas not accessible by road. Lots of bears at Cape Churchill in Wapusk National Park, where bear cubs are nursed and kept in the den. Yes, the polar bears build their own den for cubs!

Because you could experience bad weather and couldn’t go out, or it were windy and animals were hiding. It is better to stay in Churchill for at least four days. I spent six days in Churchill. I saw tens of polar bears, red fox, cross fox, arctic hare, ptarmigan, and numerous swans and ducks on those days.

Finally, there are two ways to get to Churchill, plane or train. I took the flight as it is only a couple of hours from Winnipeg. The train ride is 17 hours and complicated. You can google the train ride information if you are interested.

Churchill is an interesting place. I met people from Europe, Australia, Asia, and across the US. Most were there to see bears, some to see northern lights.

Tundra Truck

Polar Bear release by helicopter from bear quarantining facility

Arctic Fox

Ptarmigan

Arctic Rabbit

Red Fox