Earthbound Artist

Articles tagged as 2024 Manitoba Trip (view all)

Witnessing Wonder: Polar Bears and Northern Lights

27 November, 2024 4 comments Leave a comment

This post is the third and final chapter of our Manitoba travel tale.

As we toured this beautiful province for five weeks alongside 18 other Airstream couples this fall, little did we know this adventure would become one of the most memorable of our lives. (There are a couple of videos at the end of this post that reveal why.)

In my first post Manitoba: Through an Artist's Eye, I shared with you my favourite photos of the Manitoba landscape.

My second post Artist's Travels: Hidden Gems of Northern Manitoba, detailed our fascinating visits with farmers at their potato, canola, honey, bison, and softwood farming operations.

As enthralling as these aspects of our tour were, the icing on our proverbial cake was a five-day excursion to Churchill, on the shores of Hudson Bay, to see polar bears and northern lights.

Having left our trucks and trailers at a campground in Thompson, we boarded a Via Rail train for the 15-hour overnight ride to Churchill.

Our hosts from Frontiers North picked us up at the train station the next morning and gave us a bus tour of Churchill. This included a visit to the town's Polar Bear Holding Facility, shown below. The 'jail' has 28 cells.

We learned that from mid October to the end of November each year, about 300 polar bears gather at the shore of Hudson Bay near Churchill. They wait for sea ice to form, so their winter seal hunt can begin.

Polar bears are marine mammals whose main diet is seal blubber. They catch seals by ambushing them at their blow holes in the ice.

The bears we were soon to meet had not eaten since spring when the ice melted. They spent their summer inland, without food, resting and living off of their body fat reserves.

Polar bears are powerful predators. A mature adult male can be ten feet long and weigh 1,500 lbs - a dangerous threat to humans.

Churchill is very protective of its polar bear population and does its best to keep bears away from townspeople. But now and then a hungry bear gets too close to town.

In that case, the bear is caught in a bear trap similar to the one shown here, using seal meat as bait. The bear is transported to jail and kept there until sea ice forms. Then the bear is anaesthetized, netted, and transported by helicopter far up the coast so it can reach the ice from there.

While in jail, the bear is not given anything to eat, so it will not associate the facility with food. In other words, the bear's fast continues whether it is incarcerated or not.

After the town tour, we were dropped off at the Tundra Buggy dock to board this 40-passenger cross between a Greyhound bus and a Hummer.

The tires were as tall as I and the electric powered vehicle was custom-built to navigate the rough terrain of the tundra while keeping passengers safe from bears. The open air viewing deck at the back made photographing wildlife easier.

Once we boarded the Tundra Buggy, our feet did not touch ground for three days. The reason was twofold: to keep us safe from bears, and to keep the tundra as untouched by humans as possible. The Tundra Buggies adhere to a strict trail network in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area to protect the delicate tundra ecosystem.

After spending the afternoon meandering over rough terrain full of rocks and shallow ponds, listening to stories from our guide and our driver, and seeing bears and ptarmigan, (more about that later), we docked at the Tundra Lodge, pictured here on the shore of Hudson Bay.

I would describe this portable, self-contained resort as a travel trailer on steroids. The Lodge unit on the right was our sleeping car, with each little square window representing a single bunk. There were hot showers and flush toilets, as the Lodge had storage tanks for fresh water and waste water.

The unit with the viewing deck on top was our lounge. Beyond that were the dining hall, kitchen, and staff lodging. Outdoor viewing platforms connected each unit to the next one. For two nights we stayed in this comfortable resort overlooking Hudson Bay. We slept well in cozy bunk beds and enjoyed chef-created meals in the dining hall.

For another two days we crawled over rough terrain in the Tundra Buggy, coming close to bears many times and spotting other arctic wildlife such as fox, hare, bald eagle, and many small birds. On our last day, one female polar bear came within 20 feet of our vehicle.

I have so much excellent photographic footage of our bear encounters that I made this video to share the most exciting highlights with you. Click on the image below and meet some bears! (The video is 12 minutes long so may take a few moments to load, depending on your internet speed. Trust me - it will be worth the wait.)

 

While we were at the Tundra Lodge, northern lights that had eluded us for the entire Manitoba trip finally made their appearance on a clear night.

Those of us brave souls who donned coats over PJ's and ventured outside in the wee hours of the morning were treated to an epic display of red, purple, and green Aurora dancing among brilliant stars over Hudson Bay. The sight was profoundly beautiful and took our breath away.

On the overnight train back to Thompson, a few of us caught another strong show of northern lights, this time all in brilliant green.

Then, incredibly, we experienced the strongest celestial show as we journeyed south towards Winnipeg.

The rays of scarlet, pink, and green light danced throughout the entire dome of the sky for several hours. Words cannot express the wonder we felt as we witnessed this natural phenomenon. It was an overwhelmingly moving experience.

I was able to capture a multitude of stunning photos of the aurora with my iPhone and made this six-minute slideshow of our best northern lights sightings.

 

I hope you have enjoyed my travel tales of northern Manitoba, and that I have been able to convey the enthralling magic of our experiences. I also hope you can witness these natural wonders in person one day.

If you have comments you wish to share, please do so using the 'Leave a Comment' button at the top of this post. 

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to see more travel tales, painting stories, studio news updates, or notices of upcoming exhibitions.

Artist's Travels: Hidden Gems of Northern Manitoba

12 November, 2024 3 comments Leave a comment

This fall my husband and I had a grand adventure: a five-week guided camping tour of Manitoba from Winnipeg to Churchill and back.

In my last blog post Manitoba: Through an Artist's Eye, I shared with you my favourite photos of the Manitoba landscape, from my perspective as an artist.

For my second post, I am revealing some hidden gems we discovered during the first few weeks of our tour. We were privileged to have access to several family-owned farms where we learned about their way of life in this surprisingly fertile pocket of northern terrain.

We talked to the owner of Spud Plains Farms, the largest potato growing operation in Manitoba, and saw his potato harvesting equipment in action in the fields. We also watched one of his enormous, climate-controlled, potato storage barns being filled by conveyor belt.

Enjoy this two-minute video showing the fascinating process at Spud Plains Farms:

 


Near Neepawa, we were enthralled by several presentations at RNR Galbraith Farms, telling the story of their canola business.

Canola (an abbreviation of 'Canadian oil'), was developed by plant breeders in Saskatchewan and Manitoba during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, there are 7,500 canola farmers in Manitoba.

Canola plants grow 3 to 6 feet tall and produce beautiful yellow flowers in early summer. These develop into pods, resembling very slender pea pods.

Each pod contains dozens of tiny black seeds, which are made up of about 45% oil. Seeds are harvested in the fall and crushed to extract the oil.

Amazing Fact: Just one bushel (23 kg or 50 lbs.) of canola seed, represented by the black plastic cube in this photo, produces 11 litres (2.4 gallons) of canola oil!

Canola oil is used in a wide range of products all over the world, so it was interesting to get our hands on some canola honey at Pretty Valley Honey Farm in the Swan River Valley. Yes, bees gather nectar from nearby canola fields to make this delicious honey.

The beekeeper gave us a guided tour of his family operation, which included about 3,000 hives. He produces honey for BeeMaid, a cooperative of over 300 western Canadian beekeepers. Pretty Valley Honey Farm also creates a wide array of beautiful candles made from pure beeswax.

Interesting fact: In wintertime, if you see a bunch of dead bees on the snow surrounding a beehive, that is not cause for alarm. It means the worker bees have been keeping their hive clean by removing bee bodies as they naturally die. If there are no dead bees outside the hive, it means there are no bees still alive to do the housecleaning.

Near The Pas, we were thrilled to visit a small bison herd at Round the Bend Farm and help the farmer move his free range chickens to a new section of pasture. Now we know the answer to that age old question ’Why did the chicken cross the road?’ It was because a bunch of tourists were chasing it!

We ended our visit with a campfire dinner of bison tenderloin shish kebabs and green tomato pie. Delicious!

Enjoy this 5-minute video about our day on the farm and all the healthy, happy animals we met there:


 

At Spruce Products Ltd., a mill that has produced dimensional softwood lumber since 1942, we learned about another type of farming - growing trees that take up to 80 years to mature - and how the operation utilizes every bit of those trees for various products and it’s own energy use.

In the mill, a computer assesses each log and determines optimally what size and quantity of lumber will be cut from that log. Byproducts such as sawdust are pressed into pellets for wood stoves and shavings from the planer are bundled up to be sold as horse bedding. The bark and other log trimmings are burned to heat the drying kiln (pictured here), which removes moisture from the cut lumber to reduce warping.

Incredible fact: each board produced in this mill is stamped with a code and photographed. If there is ever a complaint about any piece of lumber afterwards, the mill can refer back to the photo taken during manufacture to investigate the complaint.

As fun and interesting as these agricultural tours were, the crowning glory on our guided caravan was an excursion to Churchill to see northern lights and polar bears.

I will share amazing photos and video footage of this extraordinary 5-day adventure in my next blog post, but for now here is a teaser shot of a curious polar bear checking us out.

If you have comments you wish to share, please do so using the 'Leave a Comment' button at the top of this post. 

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to see more travel tales, painting stories, studio news updates, or notices of upcoming exhibitions.

Manitoba: Through an Artist's Eye

29 October, 2024 7 comments Leave a comment

This month my husband and I concluded a five-week camping tour of Manitoba from Winnipeg to Churchill and back. We were on a guided adventure along with 18 other Airstream couples. Pictured above are some of our trailers, camped in the moonlight on the last night of our tour.

We had a wonderful time getting to know everyone on the trip, and enjoyed a wide variety of interesting and educational excursions together. But this post is not about our itinerary.

Instead, I am sharing with you my favourite photos of the Manitoba landscape, from my perspective as an artist. These references will provide authentic details for future paintings.

This is Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park near Dauphin. The leaning tree on the point caught my eye but I also love the rocks in the foreground and the moody sky.

 

We enjoyed a sunny autumn hike on the Rex Leach Museum Trail in Swan River. I like the contrast of yellow leaves and blue sky. The curving pathway invites the viewer to step into the scene to see what is around the bend.

 

I almost stepped on this cluster of tiny mushrooms on the trail to The Caves in Clearwater Lake Provincial Park. They make a perfectly balanced composition as they sit basking in the autumn sunshine.

 

Clearwater Lake is spring fed and lacks major in-flowing streams which may carry silt. This helps to keep the water very clear. I have seen this lovely turquoise colour in Lake Superior and would love to include it in a painting.

 

The rock lover in me is drawn to the rocky shoreline of Clearwater Lake. The autumn foliage adds a punch of contrasting colour.

 

As we enjoyed an interpretive forest walk on the Grace Lake Trail near Dauphin, I noticed the sunlight illuminating these red leaves. Glorious!

 

My husband and I took a side trip to Flin Flon to visit a friend who gave us a tour of the area. This rocky landscape punctuated with autumn poplars touches my soul.

 

Near Thompson we stopped to admire Pisew Falls. It was absolutely beautiful. The contrast of white water beside dark forest and rocks makes a stunning composition.

 

On the train from Thompson to Churchill, we saw lots of wilderness scenery from our window. The tamaracks were in their full autumn glory the week we were there. They are a deciduous conifer whose soft needles turn golden in the fall, drop from the tree and regrow each spring.

 

There was an endless parade of northern scenery from the train. This dawn scene over a wetland area has a beautiful sky.

 

The train crossed several rivers which afforded nice views of unspoiled shoreline. I liked the rocks and tamaracks in this one. These trees are also called larch.

 

As we explored the terrain between Churchill and Hudson Bay in an electric people mover called a Tundra Buggy, we saw many of these lopsided evergreens known as flag trees. They only have branches on the lee side because the branches on the windy side are killed or deformed by the constant wind, hence giving the tree a flag-like appearance.

 

 

These unique rocks form part of the tundra landscape. They have been scraped flat by glaciers, which also deposited the gravel.

 

I love the colours and forms of this rocky shoreline of Hudson Bay near Churchill's harbour. They definitely will make it into a future painting.

 

These striped rocks on the shore of Setting Lake at Wabowden would make a great foreground for a painting. The stripes lead the viewer's eye into the scene.

 

This photo shows the structure of roadside tamarack trees very well. I like the contrast of their yellow needles against the other conifers and the blue sky.

 

 

This shallow bay in Cross Lake near Grand Rapids has several interesting features. I am intrigued by the ribbons of refracted light that are dancing over the pebble bottom. The reflected light on the water surface on the left is interesting too. Foliage colours are warm and inviting.

 

I love the brilliant scarlet and gold of this fiery sunset on Cross Bay Lake and the hint of distant rain. I may use these elements in a future northern lake painting.

I am happy to share this brief glimpse of our Manitoba adventure. I hope seeing my photos and reading my thoughts about them gives you an idea of how an artist views the world. 

Stay tuned for more stories from our Manitoba trip. I can't wait to show you the amazing farms, majestic polar bears, and epic northern lights we encountered.

If you have comments you wish to share, please do so using the 'Leave a Comment' button at the top of this post. 

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to see more travel tales, painting stories, studio news updates, or notices of upcoming exhibitions.