More from Polar Bear Alley - Polar Bear News from Churchill, Manitoba

Polar Bear Blog - November 3, 2008 - The Non-Bear Season

Back in the saddle again, the film crew is in and just (almost) in time for a 'polar bear lift', not so much a local strongman contest as a relocation of polar bears north of Churchill by helicopter. In the hopes of continuing the bears natural northern 'migration', some bears get flown north to the area around North Knife River or Seal River and released. Its a pretty expensive project with the sole intention of preventing polar bear mortalities (and humans too, I suppose) around Churchill.

This year continues to be pretty quiet in town, no more bear lifts scheduled until November 10th and then maybe that could be the last one for this year but I kind of doubt it. There's usually a last wave of bear activity in the week or two leading up to freezeup. Then again, this could be different. A few people are saying they haven't seen snow this deep this early for years and never heavy snow like this... as usual its a strange year up here.