Polar Bear Express (Nature Writing in Churchill, Canada)

Robert Pyle and cultural touring guides

Seven-day nature writing and touring program by rail

November 2 – November 9, 2008

Tuition: $4,248 CANADIAN (includes hotel in Winnipeg, train travel, sleeping accommodations, meals and touring for two days while in Churchill)

Co-sponsored by Orion Magazine

Registration deadline is April 15, 2008

Application Form

On this amazing train route from Winnipeg to Churchill, Canada, participants will come on board to write together, observe the pristine wilderness of northern Canada, and have the unique opportunity to see polar bears in their natural habitat near Churchill. Along the way, the group will stop and enjoy regional music and literary events, but the star of this program is the train ride itself, where one sees firsthand the beauty of the landscape, the fauna, the birdlife – all of which conspires to inform one’s writing and one’s viewpoint on nature and our role as stewards. Note that on this particular trip, we will be in Churchill to see the polar bears at the light of the waxing moon.

Traveling by train affords everyone the opportunity to listen to each other's works, as well as the work of the key authors, while experiencing this full immersion in the landscape. The day’s travel will be punctuated by readings, lectures, cultural touring information, craft discussions and one-on-one critiques. Come prepared to write every day; to listen to the works of the other participants; to open your eyes to the astounding wilderness of the Hudson Bay region; and to open your spirit to the awesome power of the natural world.

A detailed itinerary is listed below. Participants should arrive in Winnipeg the night before the train departs; Great River Arts will have hotel accommodations convenient to the train station set aside for participants. All meals are included in the trip, as well as the sleeping car accommodations on the train. Participants pay their way to and from Winnipeg.

This is a journey of over one thousand miles to the end of the line; to beyond the tree line, to a place of sub-arctic tundra and permafrost, of short summers and long winters. Hundreds of lakes and rivers dot the land of the Cree and Chipewayan, where cormorants, swans and ptarmigan fly overhead, where stunted trees stand in muskeg, where telephone poles require tripods to stand upright: a land without roads.

This is a journey to the land of the polar bear.

The Inuit have lived on the shores of the Hudson Bay for millennia, deriving sustenance from the bounty of nature. Other mammals thrive there as well: the world’s largest concentration of bone-white beluga whales; ringed and bearded seals; and the seal’s top predator - the great white bear, the largest land predator in the world. Every summer, when the sea ice grows soft, the bears migrate south to forage on land. As autumn turns toward winter, they return north, hungry, prowling, waiting for the ice to form. The mouth of the Churchill River is where they congregate. And that is where we are going.

This is a land of long memory and hard promises – a delicate ecosystem seldom seen by Americans, one now threatened by global warming. There is still time to see this country, but for how long no one knows. This is your chance to take the trip of a lifetime, a writing excursion on a remote rail route, surrounded by kindred spirits and fellow adventurers.

Churchill, Manitoba, population 800, exists today as a grain port. Ice-free for only three months of the year, it nonetheless provides the shortest route for shipments of Canadian grain to Russia. The Hudson’s Bay Company established its first fur-trading post in Churchill in the early 1700s, a post which remained active for the next hundred and fifty years. During railroading’s golden era, politicians and farmers clamored for a rail line to be built to the Bay, but the engineering challenges proved almost insurmountable; the line took over forty years to build. Today it is a slow moving line, but it is the only link to the outside world for scores of First Nations settlements.

We gather in Winnipeg for an early-evening reception Tuesday, November 2 (2008), at the beautiful Fort Garry Hotel, one of the last of the great Grand Trunk Pacific Railway hotels. As night falls, we make our way across the street to the Via Rail depot and board our private sleeping car. We cross the plains, through Portage la Prairie, turning north, through tiny settlements like Ochre River, Togo, Camsack, Veregrin and Mikado. Wednesday morning, we reach The Pas, on the bank of the Saskatchewan River, long a fur-trading settlement, now a logging town. We’ll stretch our legs on the platform before the train resumes its journey. Here is where the lakes start, important nesting areas for geese, teal and osprey. Soon we move into the land of muskeg–spongy moss over bedrock– arriving in the nickel-mining town of Thompson in late afternoon. During the night we leave the Laurentian Plateau behind and move into the Hudson Bay lowlands. From here north the muskeg has been permanently frozen for millennia, into permafrost. The terrain is called The Barren Lands, and we cross it for the final hours into Churchill, arriving Thursday morning.

For the next two nights, we will use our sleeping cars as our hotel, heading out on polar bear and wildlife tours by day, returning to our ‘base camp’ for writing, fellowship and discussion each night. Friday, November 8 provides a full moon. On Saturday evening, our train begins its southward journey, retracing our steps back to Winnipeg. Arrival is scheduled in Winnipeg for 8:10 AM Monday morning. Patrons are welcome to explore the area or fly back as their schedules allow.

Itinerary:

Leave Winnipeg Tuesday evening, November 2, arrive Churchill Thursday morning. Two nights in Churchill. Leave Churchill Saturday night, arrive Winnipeg Monday morning. While in Churchill, the group will have options of snowshoeing into the Boreal Forest, a dog sled run, and a trail ride by 4WD through the region along the Hudson Bay. While overnighting in Churchill, the group will continue to use the train as its home base and traveling hotel!