Photograph by Brad Josephs (all images courtesy Natural Habitat Adventures)
The Arctic tundra is one of those places that evokes pure awe with its vast sparkling landscapes and wildlife unlike any other on earth.
Amid the frozen wonderland is the town of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, where every fall the mouth of the Hudson Bay freezes over, creating an ice bridge used by polar bears looking to cross over to higher hunting grounds.
From October to November, the bears gather at this spot waiting for the bridge to form, and since 2003 Natural Habitat Adventures has been giving people the opportunity to view these majestic creatures during their brief layover.
The domicile for this excursion is the Tundra Lodge, a 32-room hotel-on-wheels that drives out onto a stretch of this frigid terrain at the beginning of each polar bear season, allowing guests to spend four days of their trip eating and sleeping in the presence of polar bears.
The Tundra Lodge has been designed specifically for the viewing of the bears and other wildlife with private windows in each of the rooms and additional sliding windows in both the lounge and dining cars accessible to everyone on board.
Outdoor viewing platforms and steel mesh flooring in between the cars of the Tundra Lodge give additional chances to have some one-on-one face time with intrigued polar bears that often explore the windows, tires, or viewing platforms, with the bears as curious about the people inside as the guests are about them.
Photograph by Brad Josephs (all images courtesy Natural Habitat Adventures)
