Each fall the white beasts overrun Churchill, Manitoba
Halloween can be very scary in the little Canadian town of Churchill (pop. 1,200), on the western shore of Hudson Bay. This fall, before Churchill's youngsters were allowed to go out trick-or-treating, armed men checked out every street and back alley. Even after the masked and costumed kids were let loose, some adults stood guard on the outskirts of town. It was not ghosts and hobgoblins that were on their minds, but polar bears.
Though few people ever get to see the furry white beasts, except for glum captives in city zoos, there is a plethora of polar bears around Churchill, especially in fall. By the time the ice freezes on Hudson Bay, as many as 200 may have passed through what local residents call the Polar Bear Capital of the World. The onetime fur-trading center happens to sit astride one of the animals' age-old migratory routes.
When the first chill sweeps across the tundra of northern Manitoba each year, the bears, in particular the big males, begin to think about their favorite winter activity, hunting fat seals on the ice floes of Hudson Bay. With unerring instinct, they begin congregating around the bay's southwestern shores, mostly in the area of Cape Churchill, only 35 miles east of the town, where the first ice usually forms. Meanwhile, pregnant females, urged on by another instinct, head for a bleak region 50 miles south of Churchill, the largest known polar bear denning area in the world. As many as 100 females hole up there for the winter in dens scooped out of the gravel and snow to have their cubs, usually two at a time. The new families will not emerge from their hideaways until spring.
It is hardly surprising that some animals wander into Churchill. Like their ursine cousins in the U.S. national parks, the bears eat almost anything and have learned that where man is, there shall garbage be also. On almost any mid-autumn day, bears can be spotted foraging in Churchill's town dump. They often come closer in, to sniff around cabins and houses, even parked cars and vans, if they think there may be a snack inside. Polars vie with Kodiak bears for the title of largest land-based carnivore in the world. A full-grown male can weigh more than 1,600 Ibs. (vs. grizzlies at 1,000 Ibs. and tigers at 850 Ibs.). If the bear is determined enough, it will barge right in; few doors are much use against powerful paws that can knock out an 800-lb. seal with a single swat.
The bears are unpredictable, and almost everyone in Churchill has a personal anecdote to prove it. Says John Ingebrigtson, 62, a former shopkeeper who has lived in town for half a century: "I remember once one got into our back porch, where we kept our meat, and Mother chased him out with a broom." Al Chartier, 37, a local guide, recalls sitting on the banks of a nearby river this September while his wife and three daughters took a chilly swim. Suddenly he glimpsed a polar bear lying in the grass on the opposite shore watching them. Chartier quietly fetched his gun. But the bear never made a move toward the bathers. Says Chartier: "When they finished their swim, the bear got up and left."