Churchill

Thursday March 5

We awoke to light snow and a stiff breeze in Winnipeg. After breakfast we boarded a charter for the two-hour flight  to Churchill. The conditions in Churchill this morning were -15 F with a windchill of -30. But the sun was warm and out of the wind it didn’t seem too bad. 

 Like Winnipeg, Churchill’s size and prosperity has shifted over the years based on changes to global trade. Winnipeg, for example, was planned as a massive railway hub, but once the Panama Canal was completed, a lot of freight diverted to that path rather than the cross-Canadian railway. This led to the growth of Vancouver and the stunting of Winnipeg’s growth. 

The civic infrastructure of Churchill was built anticipating a city of 4,000. A huge grain-exporting port was built in the 1930’s, and a joint US- Canadian military base was established after WWII. The base was closed in the 1970s and the port was closed in 2016. Ecotourism (polar bears in the fall, northern lights in the winter, belugas and wildflowers in the summer) has become the largest local industry, but the town’s permanent population hovers around 800. 

We visited the local Inuit art museum. The artifacts in the collection came largely by donation from Catholic priests and missionaries, who were often gifted the items during their work. The collection included carvings from soapstone, walrus ivory, antlers and whalebone. It was fascinating to see how porous and spongy the whalebone is; since whales do not come out on land, lighter bones help with buoyancy and swimming efficiency. 

We are staying at a small lodge outside town, to reduce the light pollution for photography. Tonight was our first outing, on the lodge grounds, to practice keeping warm and manipulating cameras in the cold and dark. It was windchill -10 when we started, not too bad… but the warmth brought with it a pretty steady snowfall. So no northern lights tonight, but a good practice with gear, and some interesting effects all the same. The cameras need to warm up overnight in a sealed bag, so some photos will come with the next day’s blog. 

Pictured: Kevin overlooking Hudson Bay (in the summer you sit here to watch belugas), the former grain elevator, a mural near the lodge, yours truly in front of the Inukshuk

Winnipeg day two

 Wednesday March 4

This morning’s plan was to visit the Art Museum, one wing of which holds a vast Inuit art collection. 

But first, we were curious about the building behind our hotel. It fills the rest of the city block and has ornate bas-relief decorations and neo-Grecian statuary on the exterior of the bottom four floors, while the 25 upper floors look to be three apartment building towers on top of the old. One of the apartment buildings has a revolving restaurant at the top. We walked the perimeter hoping for an historical marker, to no avail. So we went in, and found an elegant, gold-leaf ceilinged hallway. One of the offices was the city planning department— surely they would know the history of the building. They did not. But being Canadian, they were very helpful and took us to the landlord’s office in pursuit of information. At the landlord’s office, we met the HR director who knew at least a little of the history… it seems the building dates from about the same time as our hotel and was always a residential building. 

When we finally made it to the art gallery, we were very impressed with the extent of the Inuit art collection. The two-story foyer is dominated by a clear glass “visible vault”, arranged in columns and rows of artifacts. A kiosk allows you to look up the source of each artifact. Seeing the map of the Inuit communities across Canada was especially meaningful given our time in Nunavut last fall. 

There were two special exhibits: one by Omalluq, a female artist from Baffin Island, and the other a sculptor from the Northwest Territory, Abraham Anghik Ruben. Omalluq’s drawings reflected everyday life and the legends of the Shamans. The Ruben pieces depicted a mixture of Norse (Odin, Thor, Loki, etc) and Inuit legends. The pieces were beautiful, complex, and sometimes confusing! Most of the pieces are soapstone and quite large, some up to five feet tall. 

Our other activity for the day was to pick up our “gear” for Churchill. NatHab has parkas, snow pants, mittens, hats, sleeves and insulated snow boots for us to borrow. We will be quite the sight when fully garbed! 

We met the rest of our group for dinner; several are from Florida or California and the coldest they’ve ever been was walking in Winnipeg today— this will be interesting!

Pictured: outside and inside of Fort Garry Place, the glass elevator to the revolving restaurant, the visual vault, several Ruben pieces: Thor, Beowulf, Amergin’s Prayer (and ancient Irish legend), Sedna (the Inuit goddess of the sea).

Winnipeg

 Tuesday, March 3rd

Today was a travel day, New York to Minneapolis to Winnipeg. We don’t join our group for the trip to Churchill till tomorrow afternoon, so we spent a few hours exploring downtown Winnipeg. Our hotel, the Fort Garry, is a classic chateau-style “railroad hotel” built between 1911 and 1913. The central train station is a block away, also built in 1911. 

Winnipeg sits at The Forks, the confluence of the Red and the Assiniboine rivers, an important trading location for the First Nations and Europeans as well.  We visited a museum dedicated to the various treaties that enshrined the rights of the local nations to continue to live on their land. The posters suggested a more equitable stance than many of the US - Native American treaties. 

Winnipeg is sometimes nicknamed “winterpeg” for the long cold winter, but today was a lovely sunny 20 F. (This is unseasonably warm, of course, and Churchill will be much colder.) We walked along the frozen Red River. One side of the river was cleared as a walkway while the other lane was for skaters. It was fun to watch moms with baby strollers, fathers with small children (who can hang onto a sort of “walker” to keep them steady) and working people with their briefcases all skating. 

We also spent a couple of hours at the excellent Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The different exhibition halls covered everything from the philosophical basis for human rights, to famous issues around the world over the centuries, to the specific challenges Canada has faced at different times. Some of the exhibitions were quite grim, but all were well done and thought-provoking.

Pictured: Winnipeg from the air, Fort Garry Hotel exterior and ballroom detail, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Red River walkers and skaters. 

Final days in the Galapagos

 Thursday February 26 and Friday February 27 

We woke early Thursday morning at the Tortoise Camp after a very windy night.  It is funny how quickly we become acclimated to a new experience. When we first saw giant tortoises on Fernandina we were excited and amazed. At the tortoise camp, you could stand in one spot and count 17 of them all around you… to the point where you almost forgot to notice them, unless one sighed nearby. The sigh is their expelling air to enable them to tuck their heads and legs in under the edge of their shells; not completely the way box turtle does, but enough to protect the more tender parts. 

While others in our group enjoyed a coffee tasting from a local coffee company, we continued our search for the Painted Bill Crake, a small dark marsh dwelling bird. We had gotten glimpses of it Wednesday night but our excellent guide, Jonathan, was determined to enable us to get a photo. We saw the bird one more fleeting time and heard it several times. We have been so lucky that one of the two trip leaders is a professional birding guide! 

After breakfast on Thursday we returned to Puerto Ayora and our ship. The next scheduled stop was a sheltered bay in the east (leeward) side of the island of Santa Fe. Santa Fe counts as one of the “eastern” islands in the archipelago, which means it is older and more eroded than Isabela for example. Our plans called for snorkeling or kayaking followed by a short walk on shore in search of some new endemic species. 

The wind continued to blow from the northeast, a very unusual direction. The two hour cruise to Santa Fe was quite rough. When we arrived, the bay was also very rough as it was in the direct path of the wind (rather than in the lee of the island as with the usual southwesterly wind direction). It was unsafe even to anchor the ship there, let alone snorkel. 

In keeping with the national park rules, we proceeded to our next scheduled stop, the island of San Cristobal. This meant another three hours of rough waters. We spent the time on deck. We were rewarded with a large pod of bottlenose dolphins “bow-running” as well as some large flocks of seabirds. Unfortunately a number of our colleagues did not enjoy the afternoon very much. 

San Cristobal is home to the largest sea lion colony in the Galapagos. We walked along the boardwalk and enjoyed watching mothers and babies interact on the rocks below. On the town sidewalks near the harbor, the sea lions were everywhere, including taking over most of the benches for their own siestas. 

Friday morning was our scheduled departure from the ship, but the captain and trip leaders had a few more treats in store for us. We went on a dawn zodiac ride along the edge of a small island off the coast of San Cristobal. We watched sea lions playing in the water and sleeping on the rocks, and got one more look at great Frigatebirds and Blue-footed Boobies. 

After breakfast and departing the ship for the last time, we had an hour of free time in town before we left for the airport. Jonathan, who lives in San Cristobal and went to university there, took us to a small microbrewery run by a former national park ranger. It was well off the beaten track and a wonderful, warm, and quirky way to end our time in the Galapagos. 

Pictured: Giant Tortoise at the camp, locals sharing a bench, Male Great Frigatebird flying with a fully inflated sac, sea lions climbing over one another at the town pier, blue-footed booby posing, dolphins bow-running, endangered Galápagos Petrel

Tortoise day

 Wednesday February 25

This morning we visited the Charles Darwin Research Center (CDRC) in the town of Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz. The research center was established in 1962, shortly after the Galapagos National park was created. The purpose of the research effort, customized to each island, is to reduce the presence of invasive species and to re-establish iconic species and their necessary habitat. While the research center works with land iguanas, endangered plant species and species of birds, the largest and most visible project is their work with tortoises. 

The CDRC baseline survey in 1964 identified 15 species of tortoise across the islands, of which 3 were already extinct, and a total population of less than 10,000 animals. It is estimated that prior to the whaling era of the 18th and 19th centuries, that the population would have been closer to 200,000. Whaler’s logs document taking over 150,000 tortoises for food. In modern times the tortoises are threatened by habitat loss and the presence of introduced rats, cats, and goats on the islands. 

Tortoises lay 5-20 eggs in a pit dig in the sand near the shoreline. The eggs incubate for 4 months just by the heat of the sun. Once hatched they stay within the nest for about an additional month before they emerge. The baby tortoises are on their own once they hatch. 

The researchers collect eggs from nests on the islands where tortoises are at risk. The eggs are marked to ensure that they stay right side up, and set in a controlled environment to incubate. After the babies hatch they are raised for two years in enclosures with wire screen lids to prevent cats or rats from getting in. Then for another two years they are kept in larger open enclosures with rocks and obstacles so they learn how to navigate in the terrain of their home environment. At age five they are released to the wild. This past week, 185 tortoises were released on Floreana, the first tortoises there in many years. The released tortoises were only 80% Floreana tortoise DNA but they hope that over time as the new population reproduces the percentage will increase. 

Most of the islands have “dome shell” style tortoises; a few have “saddle shell” style. Dome tortoises forage on the ground, while Saddle tortoises have to be able to stretch their neck to reach shrubby food, enabled by the higher neck of the Saddle. The saddle style is the first kind the Europeans saw, so the word “Galapagos” is the world for “saddle” in Spanish. 

In the afternoon we drove up into the highlands to the “Tortoise Camp”. This is a 12 hectare piece of land formerly farmed, that Natural Habitat is permitted to use for conservation and ecotourism. They have already removed most of the introduced/invasive plant species (blackberry and guava in particular) and are starting to work to replant Scalesia, a giant daisy.  As the habitat improves, more tortoises is the property as a corridor for the females to get to and from the ocean shore to lay their eggs. 

Pictured: Dome and Saddle shelled tortoises, baby tortoises, some tortoise closeups, scalesia 

Caldera and finches

 Tuesday February 24

We traveled overnight to Puerta Villamil, a small resort town on the south shore of Isabela and at the foot of the Sierra Negra volcano. The harbor was full of large sailings ships. A round-the-world sailing group is in Puerta Villamil as the last provisioning spot before they head west to the Marquesas and French Polynesia. 

We rode in pickups to the park headquarters at the beginning of the caldera trail. It was nice to ride for the first 3000 feet of elevation change! Then we hiked for two miles and an additional 900 feet to the rim of the caldera, stopping to see a number of new bird species along the way. The Galapagos archipelago is famous for Darwin’s observations about the finches on different islands. It is believed that from a single original species that came from South America, over time the populations on the different islands evolved into 16 different ones: they differ by size, by coloring, by beak shape, by diet, by habitat and by island. Today we saw four new examples. 

The caldera is huge: 5 miles across in one direction and 4 miles across in the other. The sides of the caldera rise 500 feet from the floor. These are “effusive” rather than explosive volcanos; you can see the different ages of lava at different points in the caldera floor. The most recent event was in 2022, but most of the floor dates to 2006. The volcano itself is thought to be 150,000 years old.  Seismologists monitor the caldera floor, as it will start to rise from magma movement in advance of an eruption. 

Thus afternoon’s activities were to go snorkeling at a public swimming lagoon  near the town beach, or to walk along the shoreline from the lighthouse to the town.  As with many of the previous days, a beautiful morning gave way to a misty or rainy afternoon. Kevin and a few other hardy souls went snorkeling in the rain, while the rest of us took the opportunity to nap or read or catch up on work (not all of our colleagues are retired). The boardwalk to access the lagoon was a tunnel cut through the mangroves. As has become typical of our snorkeling outings, a sea lion zoom around the snorkelers, coming straight at them then veering off at the last moment. By dinner time the foothills had reappeared but the volcano was still covered in dense clouds. 

Tonight we transition to Santa Cruz, and tomorrow will be “all about tortoises” including an overnight in tents in the highlands. The blog may not get posted till Thursday. 

Pictured: sea lions dominating the harbor pavilion, Brujo flycatcher (endemic version of a Vermilion Flycatcher), woodpecker finch, warbler finch, Kevin with a snorkeling companion (courtesy of Steve Gardiner)

Western Isabela

Monday February 23

We anchored in Elizabeth Bay, located at the west side of the narrow isthmus that separates Northern and Southern Isabela. Its position and westward orientation means that all the Cromwell Current (which flows west to east across the pacific at the equator) dumps its nutrients into the bay. There are mangrove lined lagoons at the eastern side of the bay, interspersed with lava rocks and cactus. It is the only place in the world that you can see penguins in mangroves— and we did!

We went on a 90 minute zodiac ride into the lagoons. There were immense pelican nurseries and a large number of flightless cormorants. We were amazed by the number of penguins— several flocks of a dozen members each, fishing in the shallow water and swimming around and under our zodiac. We also found sea lions sleeping up on mangrove branches. The mangroves also serve as a nursery for black tip sharks; we saw several young ones as well as golden rays and a few sea turtles. As we returned to deeper water we watched a “feeding frenzy” of Frigatebirds trying to snatch jumping fish from the surface of the water. A Frigatebird cannot get its feathers wet or it will be too heavy to take off again. Then in the midst of the excitement came a full grown black tip shark entered the scene.

The Galapagos are famous for the adaptations of the local species, prompted by the harsh conditions and isolation of the islands. One aspect of those adaptations is for creatures to either become smaller or larger than the original colonizing species. The penguins are an example of the first and the tortoises of the second. 

During lunch we transitioned two hours south to Punta Moreno, located between the Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul volcanos. We had a wonderful snorkeling outing full of sea lions, turtles, diamond stingrays, penguins and beautiful fish. The Galapagos subspecies of Pacific Green Sea Turtles are so dark they are sometimes called Black. After a quick change of clothes we went for a zodiac ride in a nearby mangrove cove that was home to baby black tip sharks, spotted eagle rays and many golden cowrays. Our last stop in the zodiacs was a lava-rock cove which is home to some of the largest marine iguanas as well as penguins. To see penguins, marine iguanas, sea lions and cormorants all crowded together on a single shelf was amazing. 

Pictured: Green (or Black) Sea Turtle,

Hawksbill Turtle, penguins with marine iguanas, golden cowrays, black tip sharks, Galapagos penguins in the mangroves.