Churchill

Tundra buggies, Cape Merry and the Itsanitaq Museum over four days

Four days suit a Churchill polar bear trip. Spend the arrival afternoon walking Kelsey Boulevard and seeing the Inuit carvings at the Itsanitaq Museum on LaVerendrye Avenue, give two full days to tundra buggy tours on the Hudson Bay coast, and use the last day for Cape Merry and other sights by vehicle.

Walk Kelsey Boulevard, check in with your tour operator and spend an hour at the Itsanitaq Museum on LaVerendrye Avenue, whose Inuit carvings in stone, bone and ivory are among the finest collections in the north. Its hours are short outside summer, so check before you go.

Days two and three belong to the tundra. Tundra vehicles leave early for the Churchill Wildlife Management Area east of town and stay out all day, with lunch served on board. Bears move with the wind and the ice, so one day can bring a dozen sightings and the next only a distant shape on a ridge; two days roughly doubles your chances. Dress in layers, since the vehicles are heated but the viewing platforms at the back are not.

On the fourth day, take a taxi or drive to Cape Merry in the morning and look across the river mouth to Prince of Wales Fort, the Hudson's Bay Company's stone fortress. In the afternoon, drive out to the Miss Piggy wreck, a cargo plane that crashed in 1979 and still lies on the rocks, and pass the bear holding facility on the way. Finish with a dog-sled ride if there is snow, then dinner at the Tundra Inn pub.

In summer, swap the tundra days for a zodiac trip among the belugas and a boat crossing to the fort.

Arctic char and caribou at Churchill's dining rooms

Churchill meals are simple, filling and expensive, because nearly every ingredient arrives by train or plane. Order Arctic char, pan-fried or smoked, and caribou as steak, burger or stew when the hunters have had a good season. The Seaport and the Tundra Inn are two of the town's main dining rooms in bear season.

Northern ingredients turn up on most menus: Arctic char, pan-fried or smoked, is the fish to order, and caribou appears as steaks, burgers or stew when the hunters have had a good season. Bannock, the pan-fried bread of the North, comes with soups and chili.

The dining room and coffee shop at the Seaport Hotel on Kelsey Boulevard stay open all year and do a solid cooked breakfast, a big help before a long day on the tundra; Ptarmigan, a newer place with regional cooking, also opens year-round. The Tundra Inn's pub on Franklin Street opens in the beluga and bear seasons and is the social centre of bear season, when guides, scientists and visitors share long tables over burgers and beer. Lazy Bear Lodge runs a café in its log building from summer through the bear season, and the Royal Canadian Legion bar is where locals drink.

Most bear-season packages include meals, either in the lodges or on board the tundra vehicles. Travelling independently, plan around opening hours, which are limited outside October and November. The Northern store sells groceries if you have a kitchen, and a thermos of hot soup is the best thing you can carry out for an evening of aurora watching.

Polar bears in autumn, belugas in summer and aurora in February

Visit Churchill in October and November for polar bears, in summer for belugas in the Churchill River estuary, and in February or March for aurora. Bears gather on the coast east of town as Hudson Bay starts to freeze, when November highs reach about minus 8C and lows fall near minus 16C.

In summer the ice clears and the bears scatter inland to fast. By October average highs fall to about 2C, and in November to roughly minus 8C, with lows near minus 16C. As the bay begins to freeze, the bears gather on the coast east of town to wait for the ice that lets them hunt seals again. That window, usually from early October to mid or late November, is polar bear season, and it ends abruptly once the ice forms.

They are also beluga months, when thousands of whales come into the Churchill River estuary to feed and calve. Wildflowers cover the tundra, birds nest along the shore, and the fort across the river can be visited by boat.

Winter is severe. January averages a high of minus 21C and a low of minus 29C, and wind makes it feel far colder. Yet skies are often clear and dry, with only about 15 mm of precipitation a month, which is why February and March draw aurora watchers and dog-sledders. Churchill sits under the auroral oval, so a run of clear nights gives very good odds of seeing the lights.