Unwelcome Visitors!

On my last full day in Churchill, I went on a 1/2 day excursion with Paul from Nature 1st. We went to see the Ithica, Miss Piggy, Cape Merry, Polar Bear Jail, and a few other scenic places. When we were at Miss Piggy (an cargo plane that crashed in 1979 right near the airport) we heard crackers being fired off! We didn't explore too much and stayed VERY CLOSE to the bus! We loaded back on and went down a nearby road when we came across the intruders! A mom and 2 2 year old cubs were wreaking havoc in the outskirts of Churchill! You can see them to the right to the right of the utility pole at the bottom of the trees.

The cubs went right for the greenhouse, which was about 25 feet at the most from the open bus door where I was taking photos. No WAY I was going to step off that bus! No real need to get closer anyway....why tempt fate!

This one at the top looked like it was going to try to take a bite out of the side of the greenhouse!

Pretty soon, they decided to follow mom up the driveway toward the house! It's just so unreal that this is a daily occurrence up there. Kind of like me chasing the squirrels out of my yard...except they are a WHOLE LOT BIGGER than squirrels and can eat you...or at the least do a whole lot of damage to your property!

It cracks me up how they always walk in a single file line! No pushing or shoving....nice and orderly.

Suddenly, mom makes a b-line toward the house to investigate it. At this point, our guide is deciding if he should set off a screamer (its like a noise like you make if something is falling out of the sky that comes from a small pistol).

Instead, the owner....very worried about them being near his car....sets off his car alarm. The one cub was absolutely fascinated by the blinking lights! It really didn't seem to bother this little family at all though.

Mom got closer and closer to the house and I believe our guide set off the screamer.

By now, momma bear realized she was not welcome here and slowly let her family back in the direction they came...notice the one cub is still very inquisitive about those flashing lights!

Mom (front left) kept leading her family up to the rocks...back in the direction of Miss Piggy...

At this point, someone somewhere decided that they weren't moving along fast enough so they shot off a cracker! Notice how everyone looked and that really got their attention!

They quickly started hoofing it....you can see that the crackers can sometimes be quite effective in getting them to move along!

They scampered up onto the rocks for a better view and then took off to the left out of sight! I wish I would have had the presence of mind to video this like the owner of the house did!