Northern lights, polar bears and belugas get Churchill onto Time Magazine greatest places to travel list
CBC
Manitoba's northernmost northern lights are having a moment in the limelight.
This week, Churchill was named as one of Time Magazine's great places to visit in 2023 for its stunning multi-coloured aurora borealis, lumbering white polar bears, vocal beluga whales and more.
"It's unexpected, but definitely not surprising," Jessica Hassard, corporate communications specialist at Travel Manitoba, said of the news.
"Churchill is an atypical destination. It's absolutely off the beaten path and it's a real opportunity to make an adventure out of your vacation."
The nod comes after Winnipeg made the cut in 2021. Churchill was only one of two Canadian destinations to make the cut this year, said Hassard.
Hassard said Churchill came to be on the list after a writer with Time visited the north as part of a media tour last summer that was co-hosted by Travel Manitoba and Frontiers North Adventures.
The Time profile also boasts of how the multi-coloured night sky displays dancing above the Hudson Bay coast are viewable about 300 nights a year, and how 2023 presents a stellar opportunity to see them given solar activity is headed toward an 11-year peak in its cycle.
Perhaps the most popular draw to Churchill is its polar bears, which have long been a major tourist attraction to the northern town located about 1,000 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.
Time makes note of excursion opportunities to see the Arctic apex predators from the safety of Frontiers North Adventures' tundra buggy, a 40-passenger vehicle with two-metre-high tires that takes tourists into polar bear territory for up close and personal looks.
The buggies have an observation deck that juts off the back end.
"Sometimes the bears will come up right up underneath the back deck and sniff at people's shoes, you can literally hear them breathing," said Jessica Burtnick, director of marketing and sales at Frontiers North Adventures.
"If you're really lucky you might even end up with a polar bear that stands up and puts its paws up on the side of the tundra buggy…That's really the ultimate in the experience of having that moment."
Burtnick expects the Time notoriety to boost interest in the region, which is beginning to bounce back after several years of pandemic disruptions that upended local tourism.
She said the company's northern light season just wrapped and already has some bookings rolling in for those tours for next winter, which isn't so common so far out of aurora season.
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