Polar bear safari: Creating memories for a lifetime
Alberta-based Classic Canadian Tours is offering amazing one-day trips to view polar bears in Canada’s North.
It’s an unforgettable bucket list adventure, happening right in Canada’s own back yard.
Polar bear excursions take explorers to the isolated port town of Churchill in northern Manitoba, one of the best places in the world to view these majestic animals in their natural habitat.
And one of the best ways to observe them is with Classic Canadian Tours, an Alberta-based company specializing in expeditions to remote regions of Canada.
Its signature tour over the past two decades has been the single-day Polar Bear Safari. Guests fly direct from Calgary, Edmonton or Saskatoon on a chartered Boeing 737 to polar bear country in Churchill, nicknamed the ‘Polar Bear Capital of the World’.
“There is an incredible sense of magic in seeing the world’s largest land carnivore in the vastness of the tundra,” says Brian Keating, Classic Canadian Tour’s guest naturalist. “It’s dramatic: the anticipation and then the excitement when that first bear is spotted.”
PRIME VIEWING SEASON
Polar bears gather on the tundra near Churchill once a year, for a limited time, waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze so they can begin hunting ringed seals, their main food source.
The Polar Bear Safari is held during the height of polar bear viewing season in October and November. Once guests arrive in Churchill, they hop aboard a large all-terrain vehicle called a tundra buggy for a five- to six-hour tour to view polar bears and other spectacular Arctic wildlife along the Hudson Bay shoreline.
Visitors are taken to a wildlife management area where polar bears can be seen rolling in the snow, exploring the rocky shoreline and resting in the willows. There’s a good chance of seeing mothers and cubs as well as sparring matches between male bears.
Polar bears are curious creatures and it is not unusual for these massive bears to approach the tundra buggy to get a look at the vehicle and its occupants — providing a breathtaking up-close encounter.
For wildlife fans it doesn’t get any better, or easier, than this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
“All Canadians should have the opportunity to see this landscape and its remarkable wildlife sometime in their lives,” says Keating.
FALL 2024 POLAR BEAR SAFARI TOUR DATES
Calgary: Friday, Oct. 25 Saturday, Nov. 2
Edmonton: Sunday, Oct. 27 Saskatoon: Friday, Nov. 8
For more information or to book, call 1-866-460-1415 or vis