We woke up around 07:00 and got packed, since we needed to have our bags out of the rooms by 08:00 - that part we did remember from last night.  The temperature was -6 Celsius (about 20F), and it was kind of icy and slippery on the wooden platform between the guest rooms and the lounge.  We had one last incredible sunrise, with an amazing contrast of blue and pink clouds.  We had breakfast with Eric, D-Nice, and Glo.  We discussed healthcare around the world and wildly differing pricing, places to visit in Portugal, the werewolf gene in human beings, and how large animals like Moose and Snow Leopards can hide in plain sight.  It was less windy this morning, but none of us wanted to jinx things by mentioning it.  We hoped the animals would want to come out this morning to enjoy the better weather.  The staff in the kitchen was singing along with Britney Spears songs, which put a smile on our faces.

After breakfast we went for a walk, but Crystal (and Neil) stayed behind.  Crystal read, as she was almost done with the final paperback she’d brought.  The walk was brisk, but nice.  Mike showed us some cannons (one British and one French), which had been repurposed as ballast after their time as a weapon was over.  We saw lots of animal scat, but no animals.  We did see a spruce grouse in a tree (a spruce tree, no less), and a rough-legged hawk.  We got back just before 11:00.

Lunch was a little early today, at 11:30.  We ate with Amy, Lin, Ken, and Kathy.  We discussed our most amazing wildlife experiences around the globe, and everyone agreed the encounter between Scarbrow and Big Boy was way up there on their respective lists.  Ours included the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, the boat ride between Xigera and Mombo in Botswana, and the superpod of dolphins in Mexico, amongst other things.  They mentioned some close encounters with orcas and whales around Vancouver Island that sounded mind-blowing.  We weren’t able to have wine at lunch during the trip (as we’d be out and among the wildlife on afternoon excursions), but there was no afternoon excursion today, so Justin asked Ella “since we’re not flying the plane, can we have some wine?”  She said we could, so we all enjoyed a glass or two.  There were more hawks in the sky around the Lodge at the end of lunch.

The two planes arrived around 13:00, and new folks came in.  We knew they were about to have lunch, as we saw the staff setting up lunch tables again right after we finished our lunch.  We were on a plane with Justin again.  On the flight we saw Meese, some polar bears (including one with a cub), and lots of sea ice.  For the Mom and cub Justin banked around 360 degrees so that we could see them up close.  The sea ice was notably more prominent than when we’d flown in just three days prior.  When we landed, the folks on the other plane told us that they’d seen a couple polar bears eating a Moose.  We’re not sure if we saw it and didn’t appreciate it, or just missed it altogether.

On the ride from the airport into town, Glo saw a fox and pointed it out to us, but only Justin saw it before we passed by.  Our best guess is that it was a red arctic fox (or maybe a red cross fox, but those are quite rare).  We took a pee break at the Blueberry Inn, and Deb was there, seemingly feeling much better, so that made us all happy.  We told Stephanie about the fox that we’d seen, and she took us back out that way to search for it, but we couldn’t spot it again.

We made several short-ish stops in the afternoon.  The first was at the Itsanitaq Museum, where there was a ton of indigenous artwork, as well as some taxidermy of the animals in the area.  We went to the local Post Office for a passport stamp, indicating Churchill as the Polar Bear Capital of the World.  Stephanie told us a story about how Peter Mansbridge of CBC got his start in Churchill, with his voice being heard by an executive at the airport one day.  We stopped briefly at Cape Merry and heard stories about idiots (poorly) building the forts and (inadvertently) firing cannons into the buildings themselves.  

Stephanie also told us a story about La Perouse and Samuel Hearne, regarding an amicable takeover and then turned dark.  Hearne was in charge of the local area (for the British) when La Perouse came in with three ships and hundreds of soldiers.  He saw things were hopeless, so he surrendered without a shot being fired.  In return, La Perouse let Hearne and others sail back to England, but it didn’t go well and many of the other British people died (including some by suicide).  After hearing that uplifting story we did some shopping at several stores, but nothing was too interesting to us; plus we knew that we’re going to have to pack up everything in the next week and could take only two suitcases, so why get more stuff.  The last store was owned by the local dog mushers, and they had some of their dogs out.  One dog stared at Justin basically the entire time we were inside, then growled quietly just before we left.  

The bus went back by the Blueberry Inn to grab Gary and Barb (who had skipped the afternoon events) to go to dinner at the same place we’d been 4 nights ago, the Tundra Pub.  We were at a table with Eric, D-Nice, and Glo.  The 5 of us discussed how we had a very good group on this trip, and how everyone got along.  There were a few shared horror stories from prior group trips where the group wasn’t quite so cohesive.  The 4 of us gave Glo some ideas on where to move once her whirlwind tour comes to a close in the next couple of months.  We shared two bottles of wine during our dinner conversation.  Stephanie joined us after dropping off food for Amy and Deb at the hotel.  Now 6 of us, we talked about marijuana and its beneficial impacts on sleep (Eric has to wait until he retires to partake).  We got back to the Blueberry Inn, and Stephanie headed out, but the 5 of us grabbed a table and  continued our conversation over yet more wine.  We discussed glamping, staying at Explora (they hadn’t been, but they all agreed it sounded right up their alley), acetazolamide, and more.  

Around 20:30 we departed for the airport to take a Calm Air flight back to Winnipeg.  Because our backpacks had to be checked, Justin moved his laptop into Crystal’s small bag.  The plane was only 50-60% full, and included what seemed to be another group of people from Churchill Wild, presumably people who had wrapped up at Seal River today.  They had to de-ice the plane, so we waited for that, and we didn’t take off until 22:00.  We set our alarms for 05:00 tomorrow, as we had a very early flight back to Minneapolis and then San Diego.  We hoped to sleep on the plane, and we went to sleep almost immediately.