Our first day of exploration in Churchill

August 5, 2011


It was refreshing waking up well rested, on a bed, on solid ground. Although we miss the train, we are all excited to start our journey in Churchill!

Today was a rainy, windy, cold day but everyone was hyped to go exploring. Suited up in our rain jackets and lots of layers (except for Greg and Harry :P) we headed out to our first site: the twin golf balls. The twin golf balls are a structure used by the military as a radar base for rocket research in the 70s. It’s called the twin golf balls because of the large, golf ball-shaped canvas structure protecting the radar dishes from the elements.

The twin golf balls

We stopped here to begin our instruction on plant identification.



Trying to identify plants

Here are the few plant species that we can identify:

Fireweed

Alpine Arnica

Mountain Aven

Our next stop was Miss Piggy. Now before you think it is a big structure of Miss Piggy from the Muppets, take a look at the picture below.

Miss Piggy

Miss Piggy turned out to be a cargo plane that had crashed because it was overloaded. The story goes that the pilot realized during his flight that the plane was overloaded and tried to turn around to land on the tarmac but it was too late and it fell from the sky and landed where it sits today, on the rocks. Even though they crashed, the pilot and co-pilot were unharmed and, amazingly, the cargo was undamaged.

All of us in front of Miss Piggy

Next we moved on to the beautiful but small town of Churchill. There we stopped and acted like the tourists we are by taking lots of pictures and visiting gift shops.

Here is Greg getting eaten by a ceramic polar bear,
all of us feigning shock

After we explored the town, we had the chance to explore a beach that was behind the town community complex.

Posing for a picture on the beach - Shaughna, Eric, Emma, Liam, Troy and Shawna

Next we were off to Cape Merry, one of many national park sites around the Churchill area. Cape Merry was a gun battery defending Fort Prince of Wales. From here, we had a good view of the bay area where belugas usually swim during high tide. Unfortunately, we were unable to spot the ridges of the belugas due to the wave crests being the same colour as them. 

Standing around the cannon at Cape Merry

The next stop was a more somber one because we visited the memorial of to the Dene Village. The Dene people were relocated in 1956, away from the caribou lands to Churchill, where they lived in tents and shanties. The removal from their native lands and their loss of lifestyle took its toll on the Dene.

Looking at the memorial, seeing all those names, seeing that some of them were mere infants was upsetting. After the relocation, the population of the Dene was decimated by more than a third. The memorial was established in remembrance of this tragedy. Since this tragedy, the Dene have returned to their ancestral lifestyle in a new village outside of Churchill.

Next we got to see the bear jail were they keep the bears that are causing trouble in order to relocate them in the wild. Unfortunately we did not get to see any of the inmatesL!

The polar bear traps

Warning sign

After a full day of exploring Churchill, we returned to the centre to continue our lessons.


By Shawna and Eric