Singing Tides Beneath the Long Light

Churchill, Manitoba is known as the “Polar Bear Capitol of the World” and with good reason. Every autumn, when ice starts to form on Hudson Bay, some 650 polar bears congregate on the shoreline. In November of 2024, I spent a week at the Churchill Northern Studies Center, learning about and photographing these magnificent animals.

But there’s more to Churchill than polar bears. The town is right under the aurora oval, making it one of the best spots to see the Northern Lights. You can catch them almost 300 nights a year!

And it doesn’t stop there. Hudson Bay is home to nearly 60,000 beluga whales. For most of the year, they reside in inaccessible areas with extreme cold.  But for a short period each summer, they come into the shallow waters around Hudson Bay to breed, give birth, and socialize. 

It was the opportunity to see these “canaries of the sea” that brought me back for a second visit in August 2026. Since TG wasn’t interested, I asked my friend Deb to join me.

We planned our itinerary to get the most out of our trip while still having enough energy to enjoy each day. Since the beluga tours are tide dependent, we booked those first and then filled in our remaining time with land safaris to look for polar bears and other wildlife. We also hoped to see Northern Lights, so we joined the “Aurora Call List.” With a small deposit, we’d get a wake-up call if they showed up.

There is no easy way to get to Churchill. We could fly via Calm Air, the only airline serving Churchill, but tickets are pricey. Or we could take VIA Rail’s train, which departs from Winnipeg twice weekly and takes about 45 hours to arrive. To keep our costs low, we opted for the train.

And so, on the morning of Sunday, August 9, TG drove us from our Airbnb in Ninga to Union Station in Winnipeg to catch the 12:05 train to Churchill. This train would be our home for the next two days.

A 45-hour train ride takes some planning, especially if you’re in economy seats the whole way. The food for sale was limited, so we brought our own meals. We also packed pillows, blankets, comfy clothes, and plenty of books and games. But the scenery was so engaging we spent most of our time looking out the window, sitting in the dome car, and chatting with fellow travelers.

Heavy rains had washed out tracks between Winnipeg and Thompson, so we detoured onto the main freight line. This delayed us a bit, but we still arrived in Churchill at 11:00am on Tuesday morning.

Churchill is home to many large murals, created during the 2017 Sea Walls project. Artists came from around the world to paint them, and each mural tells a story about climate change, ocean protection, or the town itself.

After checking into our cozy room at Caribou Cottage, we were on our way. We began with a Discover Churchill tour, expecting to see all the murals. But our guide, Alex, surprised us by telling us about polar bears just outside town. In the first hour, he spotted five: two adults and a mother with two cubs. We also saw sandhill cranes, a snowshoe hare, bald eagles, plus many of the murals and other landmarks. Our week was off to a great start!

We spent our second morning on another wildlife tour, this time with Nanuk Operations. We first watched a bear on the rocks near town, then headed east after our guide Caleb got a tip. There, we found another mother polar bear with her two COYs (cubs born this winter, called “cubs of the year”) on a beluga whale carcass. They were pretty far away—too far for my long lens—but I still managed to get a few shots with my old P900.

Wildlife tours are similar everywhere. Guides drive slowly, searching for animals and sometimes sharing tips with each other. This tour was no different. We saw six polar bears, bald eagles, some snow geese, and a family of beautiful Pacific loons.

On Wednesday, August 12, we received the following email: “The forecast for tonight is favorable to potentially see the aurora and it coincides with a meteor shower! This email is to confirm your spot on our northern lights call list. Please remember to turn your ringer on and make sure your phone is NOT set to “do not disturb.”

With high hopes, we readied our cameras and tripods. Sure enough, the “Go” call came at 10:45. Alex picked us up at 11:15 and drove us to the Miss Piggy plane wreck, an iconic Churchill landmark.

We spent almost two hours watching the sky shimmer and dance. We oohed and aahed as green ribbons turned into arches, then into big tornado shapes before twisting back into ribbons. Meteors shot across the sky in every direction.

It was everything we had dreamed of.

In mid-August, Churchill enjoys long days, with sunrise around 5:30 am and sunset near 9:00 pm. The extra daylight lets you take tours well into the evening. Our first zodiac tour started at 6:30 pm.

We booked three beluga tours over the week: one in the evening, one at 8 am, and another at 10:30 am. The changing tides let us take both above-water and underwater photos in different lighting. Still, photographing whales in green water from a moving zodiac was much harder than I expected!

Our guides taught us a lot about these amazing animals as we cruised along the Churchill River. For example, belugas communicate with a whole repertoire of sounds and even have names for each other!

On our second tour, someone spotted a bear across the river, so we went to see it before returning to the whales.

Our final tour was truly memorable. We left at 10:30 and right away saw another bear on the opposite shore. After watching him for a few minutes, we went back to the belugas. They were everywhere, but none came close to our boat.

We’d heard that music might attract them, and Kathy, a fellow passenger, had brought along a small underwater microphone. She started with Beethoven, but the belugas didn’t react. Next, she tried ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” then the Bee Gees, followed by a Vivaldi violin concerto, but still nothing.

Finally, she played Andean pan flute music, and suddenly the whales came in droves.

A pod of 10 to 15 belugas followed us for over 45 minutes, giving everyone plenty of chances for both topside and underwater photos.

This is a remarkable time in the lives of these beautiful, wild creatures, and being allowed such an intimate view was mind-blowing.

That afternoon, we changed things up and joined Discover Churchill for a hike to the SS Ithaka. This ship ran aground during a fierce storm in 1960. It sits about 600 meters offshore, and at low tide you can hike out to it.

It took us about 45 minutes to pick our way across the tide pools and rocks littering the ocean floor, but standing under the impressive wreck made it all worthwhile.

We booked our final two wildlife tours with Sub-Arctic. Thanks to the long days, we went out one evening, which turned out to be another highlight. As the sun set, the animals became more active, and we watched a mother and her two cubs swimming and playing in Hudson Bay.

We saw another mother and two cubs resting on the rocks above us. While we watched, a young male walked up from far down the beach.

As he grew closer, our guide Stanley said, “The mom will chase him away,” but instead, she simply got up and moved her cubs. Later, when we looked at our photos, we noticed a fresh scratch on her nose and guessed she didn’t want another fight.

Our last tour was on Saturday, our departure day. In the first half-hour, we saw a mother with two cubs swim across the bay and then scramble up the rocky hillside, and bit further along, a single male polar bear.

After that, things got quiet. It was warm—temperatures reached 72 degrees, which is too hot for much activity on the tundra. Stanley took us deep into the boreal forest toward Twin Lakes.

We didn’t see any wildlife, but the scenery was beautiful,

And we spotted several half-buried rockets left from the 1950s launch site.

As we headed back towards town, we spotted a beautiful juvi bald eagle who posed for a few photos before flying away.

Just when we thought our trip was over, something caught my eye. As soon as I thought “bear,” Stanley noticed her, too. Another bear. With one—no, two cubs!

Across the ridge, another bear with two more cubs! And yet another coming towards the three on the ridge!

Seven bears from the same spot, and for 20 minutes, the only sound was the clicking of our cameras.

Tired but happy, we went back to Caribou Cottage to pack up and get an early dinner before our journey home.

While waiting on the platform to board the train to Winnipeg, we saw several familiar faces. Michael and Lena, the honeymooners from Austria who traveled up with us, and we had run into several times during the week, were there. We also recognized other people from the train north or from our tours.

The idea of spending two days on the train each way seemed daunting, but the trip was enjoyable. I never even opened my Kindle because the scenery was so interesting. Sleeping in economy seats wasn’t comfortable, but it was worth it for the money we saved and the extra tours we could take in Churchill. I took photos from the train and made a short video: 47 hours condensed into 90 seconds.

If you’re thinking about taking the train, my advice is to build in an extra day or two. Our train to Churchill was only two hours late, but on the way back to Winnipeg, we were delayed by track repairs. We sat in one spot for six hours, and by the time we reached Union Station, it was close to midnight, and we were over eight hours late.

Still, the Via Rail staff did everything they could to make us comfortable. They provided a free dinner, more Oreo cookies than we could eat, left the doors open so we could step outside for fresh air, and kept us as updated as possible.

TG was following our progress online, so we decided he should head back to Ninga and pick us up the next morning, while Deb and I booked a hotel in Winnipeg. There were several people on our train with early morning flights and no choice but to head straight to the airport.

Caribou Cottage was the perfect place for our stay. We shared a big kitchen, common area, and two bathrooms with four guest bedrooms. It was quiet but still close to the tour offices, restaurants, and grocery stores. Roy, our host, was easy-going and quick to respond. We spent the week with Thomas, Ruxandra & Sebastian, and Ramon & Getty—all friendly and courteous world travelers. You can find Caribou Cottage on Airbnb and Booking.com.

We went to Churchill for the belugas but got so much more. We saw hundreds of whales, spotted polar bears 41 times, and enjoyed one amazing night of aurora—the “Churchill Trifecta.”

We also saw beautiful scenery and met wonderful people, both locals and fellow travelers.

As we drove back to Ninga, I reflected on our week and everything we experienced. The belugas danced in the green water below us, and the aurora danced in the green sky above, making our time in Churchill truly magical.

You can see all my photos from our Churchill Trifeca on the Flickr link below: