An Overdose of Polar Bears

I put my whole polar bear photo and video album onto Google Photos, because I went a bit overboard and put in way too many photos of bears doing the same thing from image to image. Open the "Info" panel to read along and see what you're looking at.

Here's an explanation of what I was checking out, from a children's atlas I wrote in 2007.

POLAR BEARS IN MANITOBA [PAGE 23]

The tiny town of Churchill in the Canadian province of Manitoba gets an influx of carnivorous furry white visitors every autumn. There's a reason the sign welcoming visitors to the town says "Polar Bear Capital of the World."

Churchill sits smack-dab on the migratory path of hundreds of polar bears, which roam the frozen plains of Canada in the summer, but make beelines for Churchill as soon as it starts to ice over in October. Why? Because it's right next to Hudson Bay, a polar bear's favorite restaurant!

Polar bears favorite snacks are seals, which swim in Hudson Bay and then rest on the ice—called floes—that floats through the bay in the winter.

Hundreds of polar bears hang out near Churchill in October and November, barely patient enough to wait for the ice to freeze. In fact, some of them don't wait long enough and then they drown! Polar bears are great swimmers but if they make the mistake of swimming too far out and not finding thick ice, they sometimes don't make it back.

Other polar bears get impatient and go look for food in Churchill's garbage dump. Every resident of the town knows the telephone number of the "Polar Bear Hotline," and if they see a polar bear in town, they call the gamekeepers, who tranquilize the bear and put it in bear-jail until it can be transported safely into the wild. Why is everyone so quick to tattle? Because polar bears are not picky. If they can't find a seal, they'll happily eat a human!