The night before departing I put on one of my temporary tattoos – for Polar Bear luck (it worked!).
As I was getting ready on departure morning and I stuck my hand in a drawer and cut the tip of my middle finger on my right hand. Never realized how much I use it. Threw in extra bandaids, but it is a very difficult place to keep covered.
I was sitting in the Airport when I realized the only pair of “normal” pants I brought had an impending hole in them.
And my new backpack has so many pockets I can’t seem to find anything I need when I need it.
Perfect start to the trip…
The first flight was to Montreal – I took a photo on the way in as I have never been to Montreal. I saw the mountain that is basically “glued” to the city and thought huh – Mont is mountain in French, I wonder…
Turns out I was right – it is thought to be named for Mount Royal which is the name of that adjacent mountain.
The airport was also quite nice and not too large – it had this living wall after the customs area.
Fairly uneventful trip to Winnipeg – re-watched some of Shrinking on Apple TV+ and now I need to resubscribe to it once the series is done. Hopefully for only a month or so.
Got the rental car, easy peasy – a lot of steps up to the hotel, but fortunately there is an entrance to the hotel right from the parking lot. Unfortunately, it is through a very tight revolving door in which I dropped by backpack and broke the UV filter on my camera – so I spent about ½ an hour picking the broken glass out of my backpack. Sigh. Now I can’t get that filter ring off my lens (may need to take it in to be removed) but fortunately the camera still worked fine.
Breakfast in the morning was in a very impressive domed room at the Hotel Fort Garry.
After birding I headed back to the hotel to acquire my loaner boots & parka. It was nice not to have to either pack or wear these items and although I was nervous about the boots, they were fine. The parka probably weighed 5 pounds and honestly, I think I only wore it briefly 4 or 5 times.
We had a nice welcome dinner and I left knowing more about my fellow travelers (even a couple from New Caanan CT – which is right next to Norwalk, where I used to live) and I was signed up to be part of the Snowy Owl group (the other one was the Arctic Foxes). Ironic because we did not see either species.
Had coffee & breakfast with the couple from New Caanan, who became some of my favorite people on the trip. We had to have our luggage, other than a small carry on, out at 6pm and we departed @7:30 for a charter flight to Churchill. It was not a small plane @50 people but it was a prop plane and the trip took about 2.5 hours.
Off the plane & after a quick washroom break onto a bus and we headed for the launching pad to start our “real” trip on the Polar Rovers. We saw a Red Fox on the way to the launching pad – but no one had a photo op. The only trees on the tundra were White Spruce – if they drop seeds or cones on the tundra they won’t root, so they actually grow “other” trees from their roots. Kind of like Aspen. They also develop “ground cover” that is very thick just above the normal snow line to protect the roots. All very cool...
Twice on the lodge during a crossing, my glasses blew off my head. The first time the guide grabbed them and gave them back to me. The second time I stepped on them and a lens fell out. Krys, the lodge manager got the lens back in, but they were not really usable. Another guest was kind enough to give me a pair of readers for the duration. I was shocked that my eyeglass place was able to fix them as good a new.
The Lodge kitchen was very good at giving me wonderful keto food. In fact, on the second day I had a nice salad with chicken for lunch and several people asked if they could also have one.
In general, I slept the first part of the night in the “den” and the second (after writing in my journal) in the recliner in the lodge. Worked well for me.
I was very happy to be sleeping in the hotel the last night. They did not tell us until we landed back in Winnipeg that we might not get our luggage before dinner. At that point I desperately needed a shower – so even though I did not have a full set of clean clothes (I did have some), I had the best warm rain shower at the hotel.
We had a nice farewell dinner, slide show, gift distribution and eMail sharing. I shared a ride with a couple of folks on my flight to the airport.
The Toronto/Boston flight was not great – first the Toronto Airport is HUGE and not well signed, fortunately I did not have to rush – but I did have to take off my shoes for the first time in forever. AND the handle of my suitcase would not fully retract. Fortunately, I was able to get it on the plane and in the overhead bin. The flight left @45 minutes late to leave – someone checked a bag and didn’t show up, so I ended up getting home @9:30 and went directly to sleep. I took the next day off from birding and just recovered – some sleep, some unpacking and organizing.
My fading Tattoo
In general a great trip despite a number of minor glitches.
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