Crystal woke up at 07:00, and Justin around 08:00.  Our flight tomorrow is earlier than that, with a meeting in the lobby at 05:30, so we weren’t looking forward to that.  Online, we saw that Avon’s first two (planned) flights were available, so we were cautiously optimistic that Charlotte would be able to book everything tomorrow whilst we were on our way to Churchill.  We told her that we’d be more excited to get Avon booked than to see a polar bear tomorrow.

We didn’t have much of anything planned for the day.  There was a welcome dinner as well as a gear rental in the late afternoon and evening, but nothing scheduled before then.  We looked at the highlights (such as they were) of Winnipeg, and also some restaurants.  The restaurants all looked quite similar, so we put in some odd filters in the hope of finding something interesting, and when we put in either Uzbek or Cajun, one (of the three) results that popped up was Bistro on Notre Dame, which had a very eclectic and local-seeming menu.  So we decided to take the bus downtown and then walk over to Bistro on Notre Dame for lunch.

We had to get cash for our bus tickets, so we went inside the airport to an ATM.  But then we needed change, as we’d read that the bus drivers don’t make change.  There was a very nice woman at one of the information booths that gave us a crazy amount of exact change for the bus, even counting it out in piles for 4 bus rides (two going and two coming back).  We got on the Number 20 bus, and it took us south of the Assiniboine River, then east and finally back north to get into downtown.  On the south side of the river we were in a residential neighborhood and it looked like the neighborhoods around Fair Oaks and Carmichael in Sacramento, near where Justin’s parents live.  We saw several people that appeared to be destitute get on board and just ask to ride the bus for free - something we’d read about earlier in the morning when reading up on the bus system.  We can’t imagine something like that flying in the US; good on you Canada.

We got off the bus around the hockey stadium, not far from where some sort of protest or rally was happening.  We walked southeast towards the Museum of Human Rights, a very conspicuous-looking building right where the Red River and Assiniboine River split.  Just outside the museum we saw dozens of geese.  We walked across a pedestrian bridge across the Red River, then walked back on a different bridge, into the Exchange District.  It was supposedly the “hip” neighborhood in Winnipeg, but it looked like Covid (or something else) had done a number on it.  We were underwhelmed, and didn’t spend much time there.  We walked west on Notre Dame street, and took note of several Halal and Muslim stores and shops along the way.  

We also saw several signs for MMIWG2S+, which didn’t exactly roll off the tongue.  From context, we surmised it had something to do with the mass graves discovered recently relating to indigenous schools in Canada, and sure enough, we discovered the acronym stood for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-spirited People.  We hope that by them making this so public, there will be more attention given to the subject.  We knew very little ourselves.  More information can be found at a host of places, but this looks to be a good starting point - https://www.csvanw.org/mmiw/

On a much less somber note, we had no trouble finding our lunch spot, Bistro on Notre Dame.  There was only one other occupied table as it was still a bit early, and also a Tuesday, and we spoke quite a bit with a nice (and very talkative) waiter named Rich.  Both the drink menu and the food menu looked great, and we started with drinks, with Crystal ordering a McIntosh (Bison vodka, dry bubbles, lemon juice, berry syrup, orange bitters, berried apple), and Justin ordering a Pa Rof (purple blossom gin, maraschino liqueur, cranberry shrub, grapefruit, lime bitters.  Among other topics, we chatted with Rich about Kilimanjaro (he’d climbed it as well) and cold weather clothing.  Humorously, Rich found even the top of Kilimanjaro to be quite mild compared to Winnipeg.  Our second round of drinks was a Cab Franc for Crystal, Notre Dame Sour (purple blossom gin, orleans bitters, berry syrup, lemon juice, egg white) for Justin.  For our meal, Justin ordered a special, the Chili Crisp Duck and waffle, and Crystal ordered the Bison Melt and Chef Salad.  During the meal, Justin ordered a Reflection (blanco tequila, cointreau, grapefruit, agave syrup, smoked jalapeño salt, tomatillo) that was really good.  For dessert we split an original pie, and Justin ordered one final drink, the Manitoba Punch (honeyberry vodka, cranberry wine, Manitoba mule vodka, grapefruit, lime, rosemary).

The walk from the restaurant to the bus stop reminded us a lot of the Seventh Ward in New Orleans, specifically the area around Willie Mae’s and Dooky Chase’s.  One notable difference, however, were the giant orange posts that we surmised were to help the snow plows know where the streets are.  We had an easy ride on the Number 15 bus back to the hotel.  We got back a little after 15:00, with roughly an hour to kill before fitting time.  We lazed around, reading books and listening to podcasts.  

At fitting time, we saw a handful of other people in our group waiting as well.  Churchill Wild had a room (maybe more than one) in the hotel full of cold weather clothing.  They told us what to bring from home, but also told us there was no need to bring cold-weather pants, boots, or a giant parka, as they’d provide that for us.  But now that we were at the fitting, they told us that we wouldn’t be getting boots or pants, since fall had been warmer than normal and the boots would just sink in the muddy areas around the lodge.  Instead, the folks told us that we’d receive lighter pants and rubber boots once we got to the first lodge.  This was fine except for the fact that until we got to the lodge, we had only sandals or very lightweight shoes (since there was a strict weight requirement on luggage).  So all we got was a giant parka, and we were done in about 15 minutes, most of that waiting for the folks in front of us to get their gear.  Earlier in the day we wondered if we’d be the youngest people in the group, and were on the fence, but after seeing the handful of people at the fitting room, we now thought probably yes.  

We had more time to kill now, before the welcome dinner.  We got happy hour drinks at the Blue Marble, the restaurant/bar in the hotel.  We chatted with Ryan, the Filipino bartender.  We’d seen a lot of Filipinos around town today, and this wasn’t a huge surprise, as a decent number of Crystal’s relatives received work visas to work and live in Canada.  On TV there wasn’t much on, as sports start so late in the Central and Eastern time zones.  It was just a roll of highlights, and a roll of lowlights, on SportsCentre (we took note of the -re instead of -er).  The place eventually filled up right before we had to go upstairs for our welcome dinner.  

After chatting with Ryan for an hour or so, we went upstairs to meet our group and learn what all we’d be doing.  We’d originally learned about Churchill Wild from a fellow traveler on one of our prior trips, we think the cruise around the Canary Islands and Morocco in 2019.  Best as we can recall, we were chatting about bucket list places, and we mentioned seeing Polar Bears in Canada, and this person told us that in addition to the giant buggies that we knew about, there was a different company that had remote lodges where you could see polar bears from the ground and not through glass windows.  After getting back from that trip, we did some internet sleuthing and found Churchill Wild.  We researched their various lodges, trip itineraries, etc., and ended up deciding on the Fall Dual Lodge Safari, which - in theory at least - would maximize the odds of seeing Polar Bears, Wolves, and the Northern Lights, which were three separate bucket list items of ours.  There were three separate dates for this itinerary, and best as we recall (as we booked the trip almost a year ago) we chose the latest date, in the hopes of there being the most snow and most dark skies for the Northern Lights.

The first people we met at the welcome dinner were Michel and Catherine, who were from France.  Michel came two years ago, but Catherine had back issues, and so she wanted to see what she had missed.  We figured it was probably a good sign that Michel wanted to return.  Then we met Sara and Dana from Churchill Wild, and asked again about the boot situation, since we had nothing remotely appropriate for freezing temperatures.  They assured us that there would be plenty of available rubber boots at the lodges, and that the rubber boots would be better for the current conditions.  

Before dinner, Sara gave us a 30 minute presentation on the lodges, logistics, and the itinerary - we didn’t hear anything unexpected.  She told us there would be daylight 08:00-18:00, más o menos.  She also said there was a decent chance of auroras this time of year, and that the staff would wake us up if they appeared in the middle of the night (which was totally fine by us).  At the end of the presentation everyone introduced themselves.  There were Gary and Barb from Florida, Eric and Denise from Alaska, Amy and Debbie from Seattle, Ken and Kathy from Vancouver, Lin from Oakland, Gloria (Glo) from Vancouver (although she was currently a nomad), Neil and Denice from Perth, Michel and Catherine from France, and us.  Amy, Debbie, Ken, Kathy, and Lin all seemed to be in one group, and Glo was traveling solo.

Nobody wanted to be first in the buffet line, so we just went for it.  There were short ribs and chicken and fish for mains, potatoes and veggies for sides, and bread.  Additionally there was Cabernet, Merlot, and some sort of white wine.  We were split into two tables, and we were with Sara, Denise and Eric, Michel and Catherine, and Glo.  The other table was the large group, Dana, Gary and Barb, and the Aussies.  Our table talked mostly about dogs, sharing photos throughout the meal.  When the other table emptied out, Dana joined our table.  Dana had a tattoo of a pug in the same spot on her arm that Crystal has a tattoo of Lola.  We stayed maybe 15 minutes more before heading out.  We saw that all three of Pig’s flights were available for booking, so we were very happy about that.  We went back downstairs for a nightcap, and to our (only mild) surprise, no one from our group was down there.  We went back upstairs around 22:00, set our alarms, did the majority of our packing, and then went to sleep.