Polar Bears

From a recent visit to Churchill.

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Beautiful! Love the one with the two trekking thru the snow. I've been considering the trip. Can you tell us a bit about the trip up? How was the flight up with your big lens? Also how were accommodations?

All are lovely. Ian's favorite is mine as well.

How exciting to be able to photograph these bears. And very nicely photographed. Well done and TFS.

really like the last one.

Really super, .....one day....one day

Great shots! Great viewing in up there this year. Love the white on white.

Very nice set. Well done.

Wallace River wrote in post #17793241
Beautiful! Love the one with the two trekking thru the snow. I've been considering the trip. Can you tell us a bit about the trip up? How was the flight up with your big lens? Also how were accommodations?

Thanks. The trip was no problem. My 'big' lens is only a 300/2.8 (which I use with TCs) so my backpack is carry-on compliant but some of the other people on the trip were travelling with much more glass and no-one had to check anything. One person had 3 carry-ons (including an 800/5.6, a 400/2.8 and a 200-400!) and even he managed to get everything on the return flight which was jam-packed being the end-of-the-season.

I stayed at the Iceberg Inn - which was basic but spotlessly clean. It was much better than I was expecting actually. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were pre-arranged at local restaurants by the ground agent (Frontiers North).

Thank you, just the info I needed.

Great shots!
Thanks for sharing

It's tough to pick a single favorite image. What a trip that must have been! One of these days...

Some real stunners there Scott.. I can't wait to till i go next year. i'd be interested on a bit of a trip report if you don't mind.?

Beautiful shots. I'm particularly fond of #4 with the falling snow.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.

cheffievrs wrote in post #17797294
Some real stunners there Scott.. I can't wait to till i go next year. i'd be interested on a bit of a trip report if you don't mind.?

Thanks Jason, I realise you already know a lot of what follows, but for the benefit of others...


• This was a photographic holiday arranged through Natures Images (a UK company - very, very highly recommended).
  
• 6 full days of photography - 4 days in a Tundra Buggy, 2 days in self-drive 4x4s around Churchill.
  
• There were 12 of us in the group including Danny Green the leader. (Danny is a Canon Explorer of Light, a thoroughly nice bloke and a supremely talented wildlife photographer).
  
• We had a Tundra buggy to ourselves - which meant we could sit and wait for opportunities to develop and position the buggy for the best light (within the rules of the Tundra of course). This is probably the most significant advantage of going as part of a photographic group rather than alone. We were really aiming for a small number of quality sightings rather than the most sightings.
  
• Having said that we had over 100 sightings over the course of the 6 days. We were incredibly fortunate.
  
• From the Tundra buggy, you can shoot from a window or from the open rear deck. I took a tripod but never used it. Others used theirs on the deck though. A good beanbag is essential.
  
• I was shooting at 600mm from the buggy and 420mm from the 4x4 mainly because we were looking for foxes from the 4x4 which we expected to be able to get close to. In the event, there were hardly any foxes but we did get some excellent bear sightings from the 4x4 and I got some nice environmental portraits with the shorter focal length. I had a 70-200 on a second body but hardly used it. The others were using similar focal lengths - mainly 500mm primes with/without a 1.4x and some 200-400s.
  
• The wind chill is brutal. You need really good gloves! We deliberately kept the inside of the buggy cold to prevent condensation.
  
• Timing is everything. If you go too early, there may not be any snow. Although you would still see bears (which TBH is reason enough!) the backgrounds would be muddy brown. If you go too late, the bay will have frozen over and most of the bears will have gone. We were there for the last week of bear season - and we got lucky**
  
• Food and accommodation were excellent. (See earlier post).