Expedition to Churchill, Canada

Leaving Churchill was not as straightforward as any of us expected. We were packed and at the airport with an hour to spare but the flight was delayed. It didn't matter to me with 22 hours to waste in Winnipeg but most of the team were looking at connections with 1 to 3 hours waiting time.

Eventually it was decided to move some of us on to a charter plane that had free spaces but in the meantime the weather had got nasty and we got onto the plane in a blizzard. We taxied out onto the runway and then stopped because the plane needed de-icing. I'm not the best air traveller and I wasn't sitting comfortably when we did take off. I need not have worried and once we were above the clouds the rest of the trip was trouble free. We had left Gray, Barbara and Peter waiting for the scheduled flight. They were not so lucky, a mechanical problem delayed them around 3 more hours and all missed their connections.

I did have an eventful time in Winnipeg. I stopped off at the Ivey House and the guy on the desk said 'You've got the room off the kitchen, is that okay?' I'd had to carry my bags up three flights of stairs last time so I said 'Yeah, that's fine'. Wrong... the kitchen doubles as TV room and on a Saturday night nobody goes to bed... there was a group of blokes watching 'The Matrix' when I went to bed, when I last looked at my watch at 2.30 I think they were on 'Matrix 3'. On a good note for me, but not for her, Barbara, having missed her flight, came to find me and we shared breakfast and a taxi to the airport.

The flights from Winnipeg to Toronto and then on to London were fine, although I could have done without the guy sitting next to me pointing out where the Air France plane had crashed at Toronto in the summer.

And then, on the plane home the in flight movie was.... The bloody Matrix!

I'm writing early because we've got a bit of a last night party starting in half an hour and I'm not convinced I'll want to sit down and blog afterwards. The Party is based around a Photography Awards Ceremony which Leo is organising... I'm not expecting to win the 'picture of a polar bear' category with my effort.

We've had a clean up day, sorting out a few last minute things. I got the job of putting up a solar panel outside... I tried to warn them! If it lasts the first polar storm I'll be surprised.

The weather has changed, the winds are much stronger but are coming from the east, which here means warm (i.e. not from the prevailing North West across Hudson Bay).The temperature was back up to 7 centigrade this afternoon, balmy. Four of us: Wendy, Leo, Peter and I went out for another cross tundra run. I've really enjoyed them. It's the only time I've ventured out without a coat for ten days.

We had a group photo taken outside the Centre last night and here we all are. In case you've forgotton I'm the handsome one.

Although I've not heard the radio, seen the TV or read a newspaper for 10 days, to prove I haven't completely lost touch with the world I know that Oxford beat Carlisle tonight... good old bbc.co.uk.

We leave tomorrow morning around 9.30 and we'll all be on the plane heading back to Winnipeg at 10.45. So that may be it unless I'm bored enough to find an internet cafe in Winnipeg.

I'll definitely do a post trip update next week.

The weather gets colder. Minus seven today but this time the wind has dropped and we had a clear blue sky so when I went out this afternoon to help with the very last radar survey it was quite a pleasant experience.

In the morning I spent my day in front of the computer working on a website (a busman's holiday comes to mind but I'm pretty happy playing with Dreamweaver software so it was okay).

This evening we've had presentations from some of the other volunteers: Carla talking about an expedition to Alaska to survey Sea Otters - a project where she was joined by Roy Grant (one of Brookes Earthwatch volunteers, it did look a fantastic experience), Barbara talked about an expedition to Australia to monitor echidnas (amazing egg laying mammals) and Gray, who is my current hero, about his work as an Environmental Co-ordinator in a town in New Jersey. He has given me some fantastic ideas to bring back to Brookes to reduce our ecological footprint.

It's 10.00 pm here, in a clear night sky the northern lights are shining outside, and Mars is the brightest, and reddest, star in the sky. I'm going to go and watch.

Inspite of a wee hangover after last night I volunteered to go out and do fieldwork rather than stay and do lab work. I got the task of Polar Bear lookout whilst Eleanor (one of the Research students) Wendy, Carla and Jo were counting and documenting tundra plants. If it were not 3 degrees below it would have been a great job. Even so it was good to be out and I saw another Bald Eagle and thankfully no bears.

After lunch I teamed up with Peter, Keith, Gray and Wendy to do a GPR (radar) survey of a burnt forest area around 15km inland from the centre. It was absolutely beautiful, warmer (around zero), the sun shining on a thin blanket of snow. It turned out to be the most frustrating afternoon for Peter because the radar wouldn't work (it had got wet in the morning). The rest of us hung around and chatted and had a lovely afternoon. On the way back we saw a 'Pre-Dorset Inuit site'. Don't ask me what 'Pre-Dorset' means... but it's definitely a very long time ago. And we saw wolf tracks and three caribou out across the fen.

Peter Kershaw, our esteemed leader and Gray Russell with wolf tracks

Volunteers: Wendy Sanger and Keith Roebuck

In a few minutes we have another Polar Bear presentation, this time from Evan, another researcher. He's a really nice unassuming guy who looks about 17 and spends his life hanging out of helicopters shooting darts into Polar Bears. Some people do have really boring jobs don't they...

And, just in case I haven't mentioned him before... Hello to Leo, tall handsome Brazilian guy. I'll make sure I add a photo of him soon.

Tuesday was our day off and we got to choose between going on a Tundra Buggy to look for polar bears or going Adventure Walking from Churchill... I chose to walk.

Three of us, Keith, Carla and myself met up with Paul, a local naturalist and two girls from the UK and he took us in a bus to a variety of sites around the town. Perhaps 'adventure' wasn't quite the right word but it was historical and cultural and we got a lot of local gossip too.

Here I am waiting for Paul by his bus in Churchill, note the sunshine

Paul has been in Churchill for more than 30 years and he seems to know everything. With his help we found Beluga Whale bones on the beach, saw a Peregrine Falcon strike a flock of Snow Buntings and we also saw three Bald Eagles and more Arctic Hares.

One of the 'tourist attractions' in Churchill is a cargo plane, nicknamed Miss Piggy, that crashed in the late 70's. There were 9 people on the plane and they all walked away.

Not far from Churchill we saw two Polar Bears, perhaps not as close as those from the Tundra Buggy, but here's a picture of one of them...

We spent the rest of afternoon in Churchill, in Gypsy's very pleasant cafe/bar for a late lunch, at the Eskimo Museum and eventually to meet up with everybody at the Tundra Inn. We were due to meet between 5 and 5.30 but the Buggy riders were two and half hours late. I ended up a little worse for wear which is why this blog is a little late...