Churchill, Manitoba: Where polar bears come calling

Link: The Washington Post Former Anchorage resident Kieran Mulvaney says his interest in polar bears was sparked in the 1990s when he was aboard an icebreaker in the Arctic, watching bears watching the ship from ice floes. His longing to revisit the bears eventually led him to Churchill, Manitoba, a town that is besieged by polar bears every fall after ice forms on Hudson Bay and where a tourist industry has grown in response. "Everyone in Churchill, it seems, has polar bear stories and a ready willingness to share them with only minimal prompting," Mulvaney writes. "The helicopter pilot whose girlfriend pulled open the drapes one night to see a bear staring in through the bedroom window; the longtime resident awakened by a mother bear and two cubs breaking into his cabin, only to flee in shock after they somehow managed to press the button that lit the propane stove; the worker at the research station on the edge of town startled by another female and cubs that were so close behind him as he lunged for safety that he hit the mother in the face with the door that he desperately swung open." Now living in Alexandria, Va., Mulvaney is at work on a book about polar bears scheduled for publication next spring. His Post piece includes a slide show on polar bears' escapades in Churchill.

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