Remembering Charles “Chas” Glatzer, Cherished Friend of Churchill Wild

by George Williams

A boy is standing at the window of the lodge, watching for bears. A man kneels down on the floor beside him, hands him a camera worth $20,000, and shows him how to press the shutter. That is the memory Mike and Jeanne Reimer both come back to, and it has nothing to do with a workshop.

“Jeanne and I both fondly recall him taking time to kneel down with our young son at the lodge window and help him snap a photo with Chas’ $20,000 camera,” said Churchill Wild co-owner and founder Mike Reimer.

The man on the floor was Charles “Chas” Glatzer, Canon Explorer of Light, Master of Photography, and for 17 seasons the photo leader who brought more than 250 guests north to our lodges.

Chas died on Sunday, June 28, 2026. He is survived by his wife Sherry and his family.

We announced his passing on the Churchill Wild Facebook page in late June and promised a tribute. This is it, and it is nowhere near long enough.

Mike heard on the weekend it happened.

“It was shocking and unexpected,” said Mike. And the first memory that came to him was not about a photograph either. “How we would miss his always ready smile and helpful attitude,” said Mike. “And there was no problem he couldn’t solve if it involved a camera.”

Churchill, 2009

Mike met Chas in Churchill in 2009, where he was already running polar bear workshops.

“It was hard not to love the guy at first encounter,” said Mike.

I met him the same year, at Seal River Heritage Lodge, though met is not quite the word for it. Somewhere behind me a voice was telling guests firmly and loudly never to go out the front door of the lodge without a guide. It caught me off guard, but he was right. There are often polar bears around that door, and he was making doubly sure his group knew it.

That was Chas. Larger than life, and looking after his people. I got to know him over the years, interviewed him many times, and somewhere along the way he became a friend.

Chas had founded Shoot the Light in the mid-1990s, after a career that already included portraits, weddings, advertising, catalogue and product work, editorial reportage, professional sports and underwater photography. He earned his Master of Photography from the Professional Photographers of America, which took him three years to the day, and collected more than 40 awards. His images ran in National Geographic, Smithsonian, Outdoor Photographer, Popular Photography and dozens more.

Canon eventually came to him. That’s how the Explorers of Light program works.

“Explorer of Light is recognition for a lifetime,” Chas told us in 2018. “They come to you, you can’t apply for it. They see you’re prominent in the industry, that people have respect for what you do and how you do it. It’s all encompassing. It’s not just being able to produce good photographs, but who you are in the industry.”

None of that is why he mattered up here.

What He Changed

Churchill Wild had been walking guests with polar bears for years before Chas arrived. He brought a specific understanding of what a photographer needs, and the willingness to say so.

“Chas was one of only a few photo leaders we wanted to work with,” said Mike. “He was instrumental in helping us understand the unique needs of a photo traveller. It definitely changed some of our operational requirements.”

Meals moved. Mornings started earlier. Breakfast got interrupted and nobody apologized for it, because there was a bear on the flats and the light was right.

He came back for his record 10th trip in 2018, and that one would be his 93rd with his Shoot the Light clients. Many more would follow. He shot at all three Churchill Wild lodges over the years, though he had a particular affinity for Seal River Heritage Lodge and Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge.

Ask him why Churchill Wild, and the answer was never about the bears.

“What attracted me to Churchill Wild was the owners, Mike and Jeanne Reimer,” said Chas. “I think they’re one of the sincerest couples I’ve ever met. They’re real. You have to be a good judge of character if you want to develop long-term relationships in this business. They were people I could do that with.”

The Teacher

Everything he taught came back to one instruction.

“You have to be able to see the picture in your mind first,” said Chas. “Then you have to figure out the tools and techniques required to capture that vision, the lens, f-stops, shutter speeds, that will make your vision come to fruition.”

Here is what that looked like on the ground at Nanuk, in his own words, on an August morning in 2016 that produced the best-travelled image he ever made here.

“Upon spotting the bear we made a slow approach by vehicle,” he said. “Stopping about 100 yards away, we got in position on the ground and waited to see if curiosity would get the best of him. As most bears do, this one made its way downwind to get our scent, thereafter, making a slow meandering approach. The bear stopped, sat down and watched us for quite a while before attempting to come closer.”

And he did, until head guide Andy MacPherson ended it.

“Andy (head guide Andy MacPherson at the time) kicked a bit of dirt and threw a rock in front of it as a gentle deterrent, after which the bear turned and slowly sauntered away,” said Chas. “At no time did I feel threatened. The guides at Churchill Wild are among the best on the planet, each having spent years studying bear behaviour in the wild before guiding lodge guests.”

That photograph ended up on the cover of the fifth edition of the textbook Essentials of the Living World. McGraw-Hill chose it out of hundreds taken by other photographers.

His clients kept winning contests. He refused to enter them.

“I don’t enter because I think it’s a conflict of interest,” he told us. “What if I’m standing next to a client and I take the same photo, and my processing or composition is a little better? I’d rather see them win the prize.”

New York pediatrician Greg Gulbransen took the grand prize in The Weather Channel’s 2016 “It’s Amazing Out There” contest with “Fire On Ice,” a bear enveloped in ice mist at sunrise, shot at Seal River on a Shoot the Light departure. It was chosen from 66,000 submissions. Gulbransen won $15,000. Chas was the first person he called after his wife.

“Everything I learned, I learned from Chas,” said Gulbransen.

Sharon Fisher photographed with Chas at Seal River in 2019 and again in 2022.

“I’ve always learned from Chas,” said Fisher. “Whenever you’re around someone who has mastered their craft, you always learn something. When I got my new camera he was the first person I called. We did a Zoom session on how to use it. It’s taken me years to read light and understand exposure.”

Peggy Peregrine-Spear travelled with his group to both Seal River and Nanuk in 2023. When one of her lenses was knocked off a bench and stopped working, Chas handed her his own for the rest of Seal River.

“Chas is like a savant when it comes to photography and especially technical things,” she said. “And he always makes things fun and interesting.”

He gave a technical talk every night of every trip. Metering. Flash. Composition. Post-production. Then he took questions until people ran out of them. He knew exactly what he was trying to get them to.

“When you can see the picture in your mind, and consistently make that picture show up in the back of your camera, you know you’ve become a photographer,” he said.

One of the Great Days

November 8, 2015, at Seal River, remains one of the great days in the history of these lodges. Northern lights at 4:30 a.m., a parade of bears through the icescapes, eight of them at lunch alone, and another full night of aurora to finish.

“Today proved to be one of the most productive of my wildlife career,” said Chas at the time. “I had photographed over 11 individual polar bears including a sow with two cubs of the year, all within varied backgrounds and stunning Arctic conditions. It was truly a day that I, and those with me, will never forget.”

Then there was Nanuk.

“We had 12 wolves right in front of us howling at the aurora,” he said. “How do you describe that to people? That’s the hard part. It’s amazing to see wolves, and amazing to see the aurora, but put the two together and it’s mind-blowing.”

Asked which trip best defined Chas’ relationship with the lodges, Mike would not narrow it down.

“All of them,” he said. “Every trip was jammed with exciting adventures.”

The Family He Built Up Here

Many of the people Chas brought north never left.

“At least half of his clients were multiple veterans with him,” said Mike. “They’d follow him anywhere.”

Asked whether any of those guests are still part of the Churchill Wild family, Mike answered in one word. “Absolutely.”

The comments on our Facebook announcement came in from all over the world, many of them from people who had stood on the tundra with him.

“I was lucky to travel with him to your lodges twice,” wrote Jenny Loren. “It was such an incredible experience. I learned so much from Chas. He adored your family and guides.”

“He was there when our little photo group from Ontario was there several years ago,” wrote Carol Moffatt. “He was a bright light and very generous with his knowledge and time. I’ve never forgotten him.”

Ruth Elwell Steck’s note was especially poignant.

“After being told by another photographer to go back to the studio, that I had no business being a wildlife photographer, I ran into Chas at Nanuk and he changed everything,” she wrote. “He helped me gain the confidence to do what I am today and believe in myself.”

How He Would Want to Be Remembered

Not all of it was solemn, and he would not want it to be. Asked for a favourite memory, Mike went straight to the bottle.

“I remember choking back the awful Scotch he would bring up,” he said. “Not sure how he could drink that stuff.”

Mike never spent time with Chas away from the north. “But we always kept in touch planning the next adventure,” he said. “He was always keen to hear about any new trips we were putting together.”

We asked Mike what people who never met Chas should understand about what he meant to Churchill Wild.

“A rock-solid professional with a fabulous attitude, iced with a great sense of humour,” he said.

Photographer, teacher or friend?

“A friend,” said Mike. “You always ended up as friends with him.”

And what should not get lost?

“He was a man living his best life each and every day God gave him,” said Mike. “Never wasted a moment.”

The Last Good Day

Chas was an avid fly fisherman. It was the first thing his own website said about him away from the camera, that he could be found on a river near his home in the mountains of western North Carolina. He brought that north with him too, and joined us for Wading Wild at Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge.

The last time I spent with him was in the river behind Nanuk, fishing for brook trout. Just Chas, one of his longtime clients and me. Sunshine, a light warm wind, and not a care in the world between the three of us. His sense of humour was at its very best that day. I will never forget it.

November

The dates were already on the books. Seal River Heritage Lodge, November 6 to 13. Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge, November 11 to 18. Polar bears and wolves, daily evening seminars, in-field instruction, the same trip he had been refining for 17 years.

Chas will not be leading it.

He signed off the same way for years. The note he wrote when Canon named him an Explorer of Light ended like this.

“Wish You All… Only the Best Life has to Offer, Chas.”

He built a career on a single idea and put it on everything he made. Light Illuminates, Shadow Defines.

The light will be there in November, Chas. Over the ice and the willows and the flats, the way it always is. And like all of us here at Churchill Wild…

It will be missing you.

Our sincere condolences to Chas’ wife Sherry, his family and his many friends. Chas, thank you for 17 years, more than 250 guests, and a standard we will keep trying to live up to.

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Charles Glatzer Cold Weather Photography Album – Seal River Heritage Lodge, Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge

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