As thousands of visitors from around the world arrive in the Polar Bear Capital of the World for the traditional polar bear viewing season, Churchill Wild guests will be landing at the Churchill airport and flying straight out to one of our three ecolodges on the Hudson Bay coast. Every fall departure for 2026 is sold out: seven Polar Bear Photo Safaris at Seal River Heritage Lodge, five at Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge, and eight Great Ice Bear safaris at Dymond Lake Ecolodge, running from October 19 to November 22. Great Ice Bear guests will finish their adventure back in town at our new Blueberry Inn.
There are two great ways to see the polar bears of Hudson Bay. One is from the height and comfort of a Tundra Buggy on the tundra outside Churchill. The other is on foot, at ground level, from a fly-in lodge on the coast. Neither is better. They’re different, and the right one depends on what you prefer.
At Churchill Wild, we go to ground level.
Fall is the only time of year that all three of our polar bear lodges are open at once. Guests head out on two guided excursions a day. At Seal River and Dymond Lake, that means walking single file behind our guides. At Nanuk, our guides also use custom Tundra Rhinos, snowmobiles and komatiks to reach the bears before guests step down to ground level. Guides keep the group tight and in a single line.
A group spread out side by side could look like a “big mass of humanity marching across the tundra” to a bear, said Churchill Wild guide Jessica Day in the Afar Magazine article These 3 Tours Get You (Responsibly) Close to Grizzlies, Polar Bears, and Even Rare Spirit Bears, by former Churchill Wild guest Susan Portnoy.
For photographers, walking also means a lower angle. “With wildlife photography you want to be at eye level or below,” said Sharon Fisher, who has photographed polar bears at Seal River twice.
Seal River Heritage Lodge: Bears at the Door
Seal River Heritage Lodge sits 60 km north of Churchill, and guests might spot their first polar bears from the plane on the way in. Fisher was at Seal River with Charles Glatzer’s Shoot the Light group in 2022. She watched a big adult male and a much smaller young female start playing together. The guides had expected him to drive her off, but he was gentle, touching her with the back of his paw.
Bobbie Baird came north on a Shoot the Light Polar Bear Photo Safari in 2024 to see the polar bears and to face her fear of extreme cold. Twice a day the group suited up in lodge-provided parkas, snow pants and boots and walked for about three hours looking for wildlife.
“It was one of the most magical experiences I’ve ever had,” said Baird. She saw Arctic foxes, ptarmigan, Arctic hares, snowy owls, and wolves in their winter white, along with her first northern lights.
Moms and cubs are a favourite on every safari. On one Polar Bear Photo Safari, guide Bella Waterton watched a playful pair near the lodge alternate between wrestling and cuddling. “The cub snowplowed the mother, nipped at her ears,” said Waterton.
On another Seal River departure, guests watched a big male swim through brash ice too thin to hold him, leaping between ice pans before coming ashore to feed. On the last day, a mother brought her two cubs right up to the lodge fence.
Weather delays can bring unexpected gifts too. For professional dog photographer Ellen Zangla, two extra days at Seal River in November 2024 became “a prolonged intimacy with the Arctic’s most enigmatic residents.”
Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge: Where the Forest Meets the Bay
Nanuk is our most remote lodge, 250 km south of Churchill, where the boreal forest meets Hudson Bay. The one-hour flight in crosses Wapusk National Park and historic York Factory. Photographers find polar bears in frosty willows, golden grasses, and fresh snow, with wolves and moose sharing the same ground. Wildlife photographer and documentary director Mathieu Courdesses said his Nanuk photo safari “could have been written as a screenplay.”
Christoph and Fabienne Jansen of ArcticWild.net reported from Seal River and Nanuk last November as the big freeze began, and Steve and Angela Pressman celebrated their fifth Churchill Wild safari at Nanuk.
Dymond Lake Ecolodge: The Great Ice Bear
Dymond Lake Ecolodge sits 30 km north of Churchill near the treeline, where polar bears share the territory with foxes, snowy owls, and the occasional wolverine. The 2025 Great Ice Bear safari was our best ever. Polar bears were abundant through October and November, and Scarbrow showed up for the 17th time in 18 years. The ice forms early on Hudson Bay near Dymond Lake, and the bears know it.
Best of Both Views
Every Great Ice Bear safari ends with a full day on the tundra with our friends at Frontiers North Adventures, aboard one of their Tundra Buggies outside Churchill.
Guests spend four nights at Dymond Lake Ecolodge, then fly back to Churchill for a guided tour of the town, with stops at the Parks Canada Visitor Centre, the Itsanitaq Museum and the Polar Bear Jail, and a night at our Blueberry Inn. On buggy day, lunch is served out on the tundra.
Great Ice Bear guests see the polar bears two ways in one trip, from the height of a Tundra Buggy near Churchill and at eye level on the Hudson Bay coast. Guests generally see a good number of polar bears from the vehicle, and walking with them takes the adventure to a whole new level.
Missing a Friend This November
For 17 seasons, Canon Explorer of Light Charles “Chas” Glatzer brought more than 250 guests north to our lodges. He died on June 28, 2026. His departures were already booked at Seal River for November 6 to 13 and at Nanuk for November 11 to 18. Chas once described a November day at Seal River in 2015 this way: “Today proved to be one of the most productive of my wildlife career.”
The light will be there again this November.
Cold-Weather Wisdom from Chas
Chas earned his cold-weather photography tips in the field, many of them in snowstorms at our lodges. A few worth packing:
- Bag your gear before going inside. Bag camera bodies and lenses before bringing them indoors to prevent condensation, but take out the cards and batteries while you’re still outside.
- Let the gear acclimate. Leaving his camera and lens outdoors before shooting made his images sharper, especially the first ones.
- Keep spares warm. Carry extra batteries in a warm pocket and swap them for the cold ones.
- Make the buttons easy to find. Small felt tabs on the shutter and AF buttons make them easy to find with gloves on.
- Protect your face. Keep bare skin off cold metal camera bodies. He wore a strip of tape across the bridge of his nose to prevent frost nip, having learned the hard way: “I have come home with a black nose on a few occasions!”
Beauty, With a Purpose
Whether guests see them from a Tundra Buggy, on foot from our lodges, or both, the polar bears of Hudson Bay stay with them long after they get home. People who spend time with polar bears often go home as ambassadors for the bears and their habitat, sharing their stories and photos.
Beauty, with a purpose. The ice season begins now.
