Polar bears

Here are some of my favorite pics from my trip up north. I stayed at Seal River Lodge through a company called Churchill Wild. It was really awesome and I got to see lots of polar bears. Lots of belugas too, but I didn't get any good shots of them. These are all wild bears...The only thing in a cage was us humans as the lodge had a fenced in back yard that the bears were occasionally very, very curious about.

My favorite shot with the sunlight and the wildflowers. This bear was very photogenic.
I stood in a tower inside the fence watching this bear and she would just stare into my eyes and huff at me a little...just to remind me who was boss.
Then she ambled off for a sniff of the flowers...
I just love how beautiful and soft they look...The light in this one shows how white they can be, but how easily they blend in with rocks.
This big guy sat down really close to us while we were on a hike. No fences here.
They're so cute!
This bear liked to pose.
The tundra wildflowers were in their final stages when I was there, but even so, they made a beautiful background for the polar bears.
This was the first bear I got to see really close up, I came out the back door into the (fortunately) fenced yard and she was right there. I could practically feel her breath on my face when I took this shot. She hung around and took a nap on the lumber pile near the lodge, on a bright orange tarp. It was pretty cute.
This is a siksik, or an arctic ground squirrel, and this particular one is possibly the fattest siksik. And no, it's not pregnant. I think it had just discovered (and jealously guarded) the compost pile.
Here's a standing shot of the big fellow who's sitting smiling in one the shots above. He was just massive and very curious. Again, no fences here, only the brave guides, Terry and Andy, of Churchill Wild, armed with noisemakers and shotguns as a last resort.
This bear was sleeping in the water where we needed to land the boats. He tried to sneak up on us, and got too close, so Andy and Terry shot noisemakers to scare him off. Here he is realizing that maybe the noisemaker wasn't so bad, and thinking about coming back. He took another two to scare off.
This bear was just checking out some of the antlers they have out in front of the lodge as decoration.
Thanks for looking! Happy quilting.