Page 18 - Seniors Today - Vol1 Issue 3

Travel
Polar Express

A trip to the coldest part of the globe ended in a heartwarming experience. By Urvi Piramal

Just five hundred miles below the Arctic, even Final stop after Churchill, on a total 30-hour
the air is rarefied. I take deep breaths to steady journey from Mumbai, we clambered on a sea
myself as I look around – not a house, not a bird, plane to Seal River Heritage Lodge. The plane
not a tree in sight. The air is shallow but my landed in the middle of a water body where we
heart is full. were welcomed by the proprietors of the inn.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start Here, we loaded our luggage onto a heavy-duty,
at the beginning… industrial strength tractor, and began our ride to
It had always been a dream of mine to see the final destination.
polar bears and the Northern Lights or Aurora
Borealis. And when the opportunity presented
itself, I jumped at the chance. We set off in
September, journeying first to London, and then
to Toronto. From Toronto we took a roughly
one-and-a-half hour flight to Winnipeg, where
we stayed the night. The next morning, we took
a two-hour flight to isolated, icy Churchill.
Aside from its unofficial self-proclamation
of being the polar bear capital of the world, it Arrival by sea plane at Seal River Heritage Lodge
also houses a polar bear jail. Yes! You read that
right. Because of the annual surge of polar bears
Churchill experiences during their annual
migration route north up Hudson Bay, there
is actually a jail for polar bears for potential
or actual ‘offenders’. Here, the polar bears
can be imprisoned by authorities if they seem
dangerous for ‘crimes’ such as attacking and
mauling, until they are rehabilitated later in the
safety of their natural environment. Our only way of transport- a tractor

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