| Tonight I’ve been home from my polar bear trip for 24 hours, and I am still reviewing my photos and memories from this experience. During our days out on the polar rover, we saw a Snowy Owl, Arctic Hares, White Ptarmigans, Arctic Foxes, Silver Foxes, Muskrats, Ravens, Blue Heron, Caribou and Wolves. We went dog-sledding in the boreal forest, and oh yeah, and we saw several polar bears too! I won’t say we saw lots of bears. This was my 6th trip to Churchill over the last 9 years, and essentially I feel like I am documenting the demise of the polar bears. Our guides kept expressing surprise and concern at the migrating birds who “shouldn’t still be here” – i.e. normally this time of year these migrating birds would be long gone. Locals were surprised they were still seeing caribou this time of year, for the same reason. However a big snowstorm hit up there the morning after we left, so hopefully that will hasten the winter season onto the tundra…so the ice will freeze and the bears can get out on the bay to feed. I was worried that my group wouldn’t see many bears, but we did end up having some wonderful close up encounters with bears. Some bears are skittish, some are goofy, some just want to be left alone, some are really sleepy, and some seem to enjoy hanging out near our vehicle and putting on a show. That was the case with this female bear (above), whom we named “Lunch Bear” because she stayed next to us for a couple hours while we had lunch. She rolled around in the willows and grasses, doing yoga stretches and then sitting up and gazing at us, and we watched her in silent delight. I’ll be sharing photos from my trip on my photo pages here. Give me a few days to review and edit the images before I upload later this week, but you can check out photos from previous trips here now. Share Photos of Your Quilt Projects: Did you see our e-newsletter about our Facebook Giveaway? Deadline is October 31 – see details posted here on our blog. Sharing your love of fabric, Luana and Paul Quilt/Travel/Sponsor Calendar: Nov 3-4 – Intl Quilt Museum – Lincoln NE Dec 1-2 – Clinton Presidential Library Feb 22-25 – QuiltCon – Atlanta See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, watch our videos, or follow us on Facebook. Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter pages for Color and Design ideas. |
