Summer Outreach on Polar Bears

Polar Bears International staff have been conducting outreach with locals and visitors alike from its interpretive centers in Churchill, Canada, and Svalbard, Norway, this summer. Here, Kayla McCurry and Dr. Louise Archer talk about what that has been like, and the differences between two locations known for their polar bears.

Churchill base camp

Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, is famous for its polar bears and is the best place in the world for most people to see polar bears in the wild each fall. But Churchill is more than those few weeks in October and November. Every summer, it comes alive as wildflowers bloom, thousands of migrating birds gather, and belugas throng the Churchill River and the coastal waters of Hudson Bay.

From July 1-August 31, the Polar Bears International House in Churchill is open for visitors, just as it is in the fall and during the winter northern lights season. Although summer tourists aren’t likely to have come to town solely in search of polar bears, PBI Outreach Specialist Kayla McCurry says that many of them still want to talk and learn about them.

“People are in town on an ecotourism adventure, even if it's for belugas, because they feel a connection to the natural world,” says Kayla, who was one of the staff at the PBI House this summer. “I think that if you're making a journey to Churchill, you are surely aware of all that Churchill has to offer, at least at some level. So, even though it’s not bear season, we have people stopping by to visit with us.”

Indeed, in some cases, visitors return to Churchill in the summer after previously having a memorable experience during the fall.

“We did have one group that had had a great weekend during polar bear season, including seeing a mom with triplets,” says Kayla. “They said, ‘Yeah, we just had to come back. We wanted to see Churchill in all the different seasons.’”

In late July, PBI House also hosts a summer camp for Churchill’s children, who learn about the area’s wildlife, local culture, and their place in the environment. They’re also encouraged to express themselves creatively.

"We made fireweed lemonade and bannock,” Kayla explains. “The younger kids painted kindness rocks with local artists and placed their rocks around town, and the older kids had an introduction to photography and at the end of their week got to hang their pictures in the Discover Churchill gallery. They went out on the Tundra Buggy and got to see wildlife up close. They learned Cree words for the different animals and plants that they saw on the buggies. The energy was really great.”

All in all, enthuses Kayla, the days were long and busy but tremendously rewarding.

“One moment we’re talking to people about bears and sea ice, and how sea ice loss is impacting belugas as well as polar bears. Next, we're running summer camp and doing paints and crafts, and then, when the kids go out on a short field trip, we’re hosting visitors again, and finally in the evening the house is likely to be used for a community event. One day, we had a community baby shower there. Just having a dedicated space that's available for all these different uses is pretty awesome.”

Outreach from Svalbard

Roughly 2,500 miles away, in Longyearbyen, capital of the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, PBI Postdoctoral Fellow Louise Archer and Field Ambassador Larissa Thelin were holding court in PBI’s pop-up Ice House: a movable, transparent sphere that was set up in a prominent part of town, outside the Svalbard Museum, from June 25-August 2.

Svalbard boasts approximately 250 bears that live on the archipelago year-round; although they are widely dispersed and not likely to be seen, Louise found that visitors to the Ice House often ask about them.

“People know they’re around, and so that’s a question that we get a lot: ‘Where are the bears right now?’ And that gives us an opportunity to walk people through this idea of polar bears moving on to land and waiting on land for sea ice to return, which leads into the role of sea ice and the changes taking place in the area.”

Louise, who has helped staff both of Polar Bears International’s interpretive centers, finds there are some subtle differences between visitors to the Svalbard Ice House and those who drop in to the PBI House in Churchill. For one, Svalbard visitors tend to be predominantly European, and many come to the climate issue with a perspective that is focused more on solutions; there is generally less need to persuade them that the issue is real than can be the case in North America. And while many visitors to Churchill, even during beluga season, are likely to have polar bears at least somewhat at the front of their mind, Louise says that visitors to Svalbard are often inspired by the region as a whole.

“Generally, it feels that people have been drawn there, not so much by the chance of seeing a polar bear, but often by the idea of being in the Arctic in summertime, and being able to experience 24 hours of daylight.”

Many people are surprised to find that summer in the Arctic in summertime can be warm and welcoming—which, Louise finds, can help when talking about climate change.

“Some days I’m there in a T-shirt and we have visitors who have just come off their  expedition ships in these huge parkas and have to strip off a bunch of layers. I think that does help bring the message home: You’re standing  in the Arctic and it’s 60 degrees with very little snow in the immediate area. So that does help set the scene for people as you’re talking to them about how this area is changing really quickly, and what that means for polar bears here in the future, but also across the region.”

For Louise, whose postdoctoral studies focus on polar bear energy budgets, being at the Ice House is a welcome opportunity to pop her head out of her research bubble for a few weeks.

“Stepping outside of an academic setting and getting to talk to people about research is so important, particularly for species like polar bears that are iconic and very meaningful to people across the world,” she says.

“It’s great to be able to share what’s what we’re finding in the scientific or the academic world with people who are really interested in what we’re finding out.  And at the same time, it’s good to hear people’s questions, learn what’s important to them. It’s very interesting and very rewarding.”

Kieran Mulvaney is the author of The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear. He is a frequent contributor to the Polar Bears International website and also writes for publications including National Geographic, Smithsonian, and The Guardian.