Tundra—Day 2
The day’s end—The PolarBearites seated on the right side of the prop jet, taking us back to Winnipeg from Churchill, are just too burnt out to travel all the way to the left side of the plane, to see what might be the Northern Lights. We are inured. It’s just been too busy of a day.
How did it begin? More food at Gypsy’s, of course. Coffee for those in the know. Then on to the school bus, for our last day with Steve the Wonder Guide, and our last day on the tundra.
Well, the tundra started out bumpy, as usual, but without bears. The PolarBearites were anxious, given the prior tundra day’s dearth of bears after the PolarBearites’ lunch (did I mention we ate again?). We needn’t have worried.
First up was a lazy bear near the willows. Up, down, plop down for the duration. As we were watching him, another bear was traipsing up from an iced lake a way down the tundra. Windows pulled down, back door opened, shut, opened again, photo clicks everywhere, binocs out. Watching the bear come towards us. Or so we hoped.
In the middle of all of this, two bears on the other side of the buggy were snoozing, having just sparred (they were too far during sparring for us to be real voyeurs). Attention shifted, of course, to the new bear sights, which appeared to be resting and cooling off from the prior fracas. So the PolarBearites did what PolarBearites do—we had coffee, cocoa, and tundracino (a mix of both).
At almost the end of the tundracino break, one of the two bears resting near the willows got his second wind. That meant that the second bear would be forced to play. Sparring. Up close and personal. We PolarBearites were close enough to see the action. With embellishments (zooms, binocs) we could see the big feet flail in the air, the big paw pounding down on a shoulder, the sharp teeth pulling the bear-skin taut. And the almost smiley faces of the players, sharpening their skills for the upcoming trek across the Hudson Bay.
With all this excitement, we had forgotten the bear walking across the lake. Here he was, sleeping in the willows.
On we PolarBearites buggied, to Ptarmigan Alley. We did not find ptarmigan, but we did find another bear, close to the buggy, lolling in front of some willows. We watched him for about 20 minutes, during which the extent of his action was to lift his head up, put it back down, and clean his paws. Looked just like my dog.
Leader Steve then decided that this bear was a good backdrop for lunch. More food. Just as we were leaving, the bear lugged his sorry bottom to the lake and slid onto the ice, chin first, and butt up, then shoulders down, then finally flopping his butt to the ice. His encore? A roll on his back to cool off, all four feet waving at the sky.
Thereafter, as we left Ptarmigan Alley, we saw a bunch of lovely clean, white ptarmigans. One in a tree. Lovely.
That was it for a long, long while, as the buggy bumped its way over the rocks. In fact, it looked as though this afternoon would be as barren as the first tundra afternoon. Oh ye PolarBearites of little bear faith.
The buggy driver and Steve the Great both pulled out their binocs. Both squinted. Both smiled. We had a mom and a cub. A “little” cub, of less than a year. The duo ever so elegantly walked across the lake to land. The cub trying to be just like its mom. The mom looking behind to make sure the cub was following. The cub followed mom off the lake to “behind” three willows—“behind” being directly in front of our buggy. The mom dug in the snow and lay down. The cub did the same. Thus creating the perfect Christmas card, even for this Jewish girl.
We had to leave, since time was scarce. Even so, the driver crawled the buggy right past the bear family, almost close enough to touch. A sweet goodbye to the tundra.