Subarctic Research Station Hosts ‘Learning Vacations’ in New Eco-Friendly Facility

At Churchill Northern Studies Centre,

Guests Stay Among Working Scientists

In Manitoba’s Polar Bear Country

Seasonal Programs Focus on Bears,

Birdlife, Northern Lights, and More

            CHURCHILL, Manitoba, Canada, Oct. 12, 2011 —  An active scientific research outpost on the subarctic Hudson Bay coast of  Manitoba, Canada, is hosting tour programs for travelers curious about the wildlife, ecology, and other natural phenomena of the Far North in a new facility uniquely suited to observing and protecting its exotic environment.

            The independent, non-profit Churchill Northern Studies Centre, about 14 miles from the remote seaport town of Churchill, offers expert-led “Learning Vacations” about local polar bears, northern lights, birdlife, and other topics.

            The multiday adventure-study tours provide guests with opportunities to peer into the frontiers of science on the arctic frontier by observing and even assisting in research.

            Tour members live and learn alongside senior scientists and student researchers in an environmentally friendly, handicap-accessible facility that opened this past summer. The two-storey, 27,000 square-foot structure was built to LEED Gold certification standards. Natural light permeates 90 percent of the interior space. A solar wall that heats incoming ventilation air is among the green features of the unusual trapezoid-shaped building. Amenities include sleeping quarters, cafeteria, laboratories, classrooms, an open-air viewing deck on the second floor that wraps around a corner of the building and is ideal for safely observing and photographing polar bears and other wildlife, and a heated, dome-covered observation lounge for relaxing and viewing the northern lights.

            Metal bars across the outside of the first-floor windows keep powerful and curious local polar bears from clawing on the glass.

            The new building replaces a decades-old utilitarian structure whose confines were rather Spartan. According to the center’s management, vacationers and resident scientists now enjoy greater comfort in more spacious surroundings, including guest rooms with cathedral ceilings, common areas suited to socializing, and a 100-seat cafeteria roomy enough so that everyone can dine together rather than eating in shifts, as was the case in the old 38-seat dining room.

            Michael A. Goodyear, the center’s executive director, says guests receive “a quality of information that’s very high” from lecturers, guides, and researchers posted to the facility. Goodyear, who guides some tours himself, is a wildlife biologist with undergraduate and graduate zoology degrees from the University of Manitoba.

            Prices for all tours include lodging in four-person dormitory-style bunk-bed rooms with shared baths, excursions, lectures, local transportation, and three cafeteria meals daily. Linens are provided, but toiletries are not. “We’re not trying to be a hotel,” Goodyear advises. “There’s no in-room TV or maid service.”  Tour prices don’t cover transportation from home to Churchill.

            Here’s the schedule of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre’s “Learning Vacations” from late fall 2011 through late spring 2012:

• “Lords of the Arctic.”  The organization will offer its “Lords of the Arctic: The Ecology of Hudson Bay’s Polar Bears” program October 25–November 1, 2011 and November 8–15, 2011. Churchill’s annual fall polar-bear migration has become a tourism mainstay. Goodyear says “Lords of the Arctic” is designed to offer “a more immersive experience” than the typical polar bear-watching tour. Activities include evening lectures, two-days of close-up polar bear viewing from a specially built tundra vehicle, a 45-minute helicopter ride over the barren Hudson Bay lowlands — with occasional views of bear, moose, and caribou — a dog-sled ride, a visi
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