This is my last blog. You might think this would be a happy occasion because we will be going home to tell our families and friends about what we have learned and how we can make a difference. And that’s true, we will be happy to be home, but we will be sad too, since we are leaving all the incredible people we have gotten to know so well. We were strangers when we came here a week ago, and were leaving as family. This once-in-a-lifetime experience has bonded us together in ways that can never be broken. Here we have learned that we are not alone; there are other people that feel the way we do about the environment, and we will be able to accomplish so much more as a group.
We’ve heard that it takes one person to change the world, and this weekend it finally makes sense. It takes one person to come up with the idea of how to change, but it takes millions to support and encourage. Otherwise the idea will die and everyone will forget the purpose. We are part of the millions of people who will make the difference. We will start programs at home; direct people to polarbearsinternational.org; and make presentations about what we did, learned, and how people at home can work for change.
This group of Arctic Ambassadors will always be friends, and we’ll stay in touch to find out what everyone is doing back home to change their community. We will continue to encourage each other, and make each other smile. Once in a while we may feel that we cannot make a difference, but now we know there are other people like us. We will always have the encouragement and love from the other PBI ambassadors.
All ambassadors, thank you for everything you do for Polar Bears International, I love you!

Becca

A Story By Becca and Sarah

Far far away on a Tundra Buggy in Churchill Canada, there existed a group of ambassadors who were out to save the world. They’d heard of this interesting creature called the Ursus maritimus (polar bear), but had never witnessed them in their natural habitat. On a cold cold night out on the Tundra these fascinating animals appeared from beyond the distance. They were not frightened by the ambassadors, they were actually some what curious about them. They sniffed around and went as they pleased around the Lodge. As soon as one was spotted all the ambassadors ran to see this spectacular sight. Pictures were taken, dreams were fulfilled, and minds were inspired. The ambassadors stayed to ooh and ahh while the bears just toddled back and forth, until they found themselves a comfortable spot for the night. While the bears went to sleep so did the Arctic Ambassadors, tired from all the excitement. They fell asleep hoping the bears would still be there in the morning and dreaming of their adventures for the next day.
When they finally awoke bright and early from the musical stylings of Robert, they jumped from their bunks to see if the bears were still there. The ambassadors were upset when they saw that the bears had moved on, to finish their own adventure. So sad and down ambassadors ate their breakfast in silence. When one optimistic ambassador looked out the window hoping and praying for the bears to be back, she was surprised when the bears came around the bend. They jumped from their seats and ran to the window hoping to see the magnificent animals once more, to prove that their night was real. They took many pictures but had mixed feelings when they had to leave for their prior engagement.
The ambassadors hopped on the Tundra Buggy heading for another once in a lifetime experience. They had worries and jitters as they waited for the ride they were about to receive. A mechanical bug hovered for a few seconds before landing, the ambassadors watched with excitement as a woman stepped from it. She told of stories where bears were once seen resting, and wanted leaders to check the places out. She walked to them to the helicopter and sent them on there way. The ambassadors arrived at a spongy cliff looking over a river; they walked around in search for where these bears may have rested. Until one leader pointed out where the bear had been resting, it was a hole in the cliff where a bear could fit. They inspected in and around the area finding evidence to show bears were there.
After an hour or so they headed back to the Lodge where they discovered that the bears had finally moved on. They were a little sad and disappointed but they knew it was for the best.

THE END

Based on a True Story

The Tundra Buggy Life:
Many people have never been on a Tundra Buggy so they don’t know what it’s like to live on one, or any of the problems that may occur.
Having so many people on the Buggy can be a disadvantage and an advantage at the same time. You tend to misplace things easily; if you just leave something on a table or chair it may get moved -- but normally everything is found within an hour. Everyone helps out by working in the kitchen, or cleaning the Lodge and the Buggy that we take out on the Tundra. We are split into four working groups who contribute on different days.
Life on the Buggies or on the Tundra is unpredictable. We can set a schedule but it never seems to get followed precisely as planned; things change. If an animal is spotted or if something takes more or less time than expected, it really influences making dinner or preparing our group presentations. Equipment that we use tends to break, which makes everything harder. And they normally break at the wrong time. Our dishwasher broke and it is really hard to wash dishes for 30 people by hand right before dinner. Also, water is a precious thing, but it’s easily overused. The water for one bunkhouse ran out, so it was hard to share only two bathrooms and one shower between 28 people! Many people said it was okay because we still had water in the one bunkhouse, but it takes a full day for water to be transported to the Tundra Buggy. We have to conserve and make the water last until some one can come out and bring more.
I talked about some negative things about staying on the Tundra Buggy but there are a lot of good things too. We are about ten feet above the ground, which allows us to see animals, such as the arctic fox and polar bear, that people cannot normally see unless they go to a zoo. So we haven’t touched the earth in over four days, but that’s fine because we get to experience things that other people cannot. We get to hear stories from amazing people that have lived here in Churchill, and the experiences that they have had. While in the Buggy we find ourselves swaying with the wind with each big gust; it almost feels like the wind is going to take us away, or rock us to sleep. We have made good friendships because of how close our quarters are. We’ve gotten to experience all of these things together, so we have bonded in a way that can not be broken, we have inside jokes with each other, we dance around, and we burst out singing. Being in the Tundra Buggy is an experience of a lifetime. There is nothing else like what we have seen, done and learned together.
I’ll keep you posted on what other things are going on around here.
Becca

“Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day, I got a beautiful feeling everything’s going my way.” A great song to hear in the morning, maybe even sing too, but at 7 in the morning it’s not the thing you really want to wake up to. We had a lot of fun today. We started out with breakfast. I’m normally not a breakfast person but this morning I had a bowl of cereal and a nice cup of hot chocolate. After breakfast all the Ambassadors talked about what we want to see, take home from this experience. Together we decided how make these things happen. Karynne, a nature interpreter from Parks Canada led us in a discussion about how climate changes have always occurred, but in the past the changes came more slowly, but now the changes are happening rapidly.
We all loaded onto the Tundra Buggy and went in search of polar bears. We finally found a mother and two cubs walking by a pond. They were fascinating to watch; from the way that they moved, to the way that the cubs would only get so far away from the mother before they would run back to her. I loved every second of it, it was an unbelievable experience. We stalked them from the Tundra Buggy so we could all get pictures. These are pictures are something I’ll be able to share with everyone when I get home. Finally the bears stopped moving and started to nap, after we got pictures from every angle we headed back to the Tundra Buggy Lodge.
Once we arrived back at the Lodge, a team of fellow Ambassadors served lunch, then we got into our groups so that we could work on our presentations. We will present different chapters in the book Impacts of a Warming Arctic to the other ambassadors. We had an hour to work on that before Lisa gave a presentation about public speaking. It was really informational and I feel that now I will be a better public speaker. After that my group had to clean the Tundra Buggy and the Lodge bathrooms and swept the floors. We then had dinner that Group A helped make: it was delicious. Every night for dinner there is a theme about the dinner, tonight’s theme was arctic pub, they made a menu and gave them interesting names, like polar bear ears with yellow snow which is actually chips and nacho cheese. I will not be blogging tomorrow because group B (my group) has kitchen duty and since we will be busy with food we will not have time to blog. Don’t worry on Monday I will blog again.

Becca



This is a slide show on what we did these past days

October 3, 2008

It’s hard to think that I’m sitting in a Tundra Buggy Lodge when just two day ago I was at my house dreaming of what I would be seeing here. The plane ride was good; I met a lot of new and interesting people from all over the world. We arrived in Winnipeg at different times and had a couple of hours to get to know each other over lunch. Next we had a meeting about what we would be seeing, establishing ground rules, and had some more getting-to-know-each-other activities. Robert Taylor presented a slide show of animals and plant life he had photographed around Churchill. We pulled a colored paperclip out of a bag to find out what group we would be in for the week. Each team is responsible for one day of cooking and cleaning. Canada Goose gave each ambassador an amazing goose down jacket before we headed off to bed.
Well, today was an exciting day; we started by getting up at 4:00 a.m. to get to the airport which, fortunately, was right across the street. The plane ride to Churchill was about three hours long, but seemed twice as long because we were all so anxious to get there. Once the plane landed we got on the bus and began to explore Churchill at the Parks Canada Center in the train station. There we learned about polar bears, caribou and migratory birds that live in the tundra. After all that excitement we stopped and ate at a cute little restaurant called Gypsy’s. Once we were all full and ready to go we went to the post office to get our passports stamped with a special seal, saw the local school, and walked along the Hudson Bay to learn some background information about the town and its inhabitants.
We talked today about how we feel about different controversial issues in Churchill. A man has chained what looked like hundreds of dogs out on the tundra; he claims he is preserving the Canadian Husky breed, yet he’s risking the dogs because polar bears have come in to eat the dogs and their food, and then polar bears learn to come to town for food – coming into contact with humans. We learned about a local scientist who did experiments on three bears to see how oil would affect them and they died, yet from the experiment he learned that oil can kill animals. I am kind of undecided about whether these experiments were appropriate. I don’t like that the bears were killed, but I appreciate that we got important information about the bears. Also we went to a “bear prison” where we met with a Manitoba Conservation Officer who told to us about the polar bears that come into the city and how dangerous it is. He also showed us where the bears are captured, taken and stored for at least 30 days before being released back into the wild. Later we went to the Tundra Buggy which took us to the Tundra Buggy Lodge where we got our bunks, got all settled in, and learned the rules we must follow while we live here.
We haven’t seen any polar bears, which is a little disappointing but tomorrow hopefully we will have better luck. The Churchill landscape is beautiful; it has many different species of plants, wildlife and unique people, the land is pretty flat but it has a lot of little ponds which we drove through to get to the Tundra Buggy Lodge. Everyone in this camp is fascinating; they have many different ideas and different opinions, we are able to see different points of views and learn what other people are thinking. Tomorrow will be a new day filled with new discussions, different issues, and many new experiences-- but don’t worry I’ll keep you posted.

Becca