CHURCHILL, MANITOBA
On October 27, 2025, Eileen and I traveled to Churchill, Manitoba to join photographer Marc Latremouille [www.wingstretch.com] and four other guests to view and photograph Polar Bears. Churchill is a subarctic port town in northern Manitoba, Canada, on the west shore of Hudson Bay. It's approximately 87 miles from the Manitoba–Nunavut border and is known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World". Churchill is a gathering place for polar bears waiting for the ice to freeze so they can begin their search for food (seals) and their lonely winter journey across the frozen ocean.
We were fortunate to see 51 bears and cubs (in many cases undoubtedly the same bears but in different locations) under a variety of conditions i.e., we saw them sitting, standing, walking on the beach and walking in snow. Marc has been leading these trips for many years and knows how to put his guests in a good position to photograph the bears.
This was the first trip in which I relied entirely on my OM System gear. The images in this section were shot hand-held with an OM1 Mark2 camera and an OM System 140-400mm f/4.5 lens with a built-in 1.25 teleconverter. With the full-frame equivalent of 1,000mm, this was the ideal set-up for this location.
On October 27, 2025, Eileen and I traveled to Churchill, Manitoba to join photographer Marc Latremouille [www.wingstretch.com] and four other guests to view and photograph Polar Bears. Churchill is a subarctic port town in northern Manitoba, Canada, on the west shore of Hudson Bay. It's approximately 87 miles from the Manitoba–Nunavut border and is known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World". Churchill is a gathering place for polar bears waiting for the ice to freeze so they can begin their search for food (seals) and their lonely winter journey across the frozen ocean.
We were fortunate to see 51 bears and cubs (in many cases undoubtedly the same bears but in different locations) under a variety of conditions i.e., we saw them sitting, standing, walking on the beach and walking in snow. Marc has been leading these trips for many years and knows how to put his guests in a good position to photograph the bears.
This was the first trip in which I relied entirely on my OM System gear. The images in this section were shot hand-held with an OM1 Mark2 camera and an OM System 140-400mm f/4.5 lens with a built-in 1.25 teleconverter. With the full-frame equivalent of 1,000mm, this was the ideal set-up for this location.
