Most of the lichen and tundra vegetation stood no taller than a well-trimmed lawn. Except for the buildings, she could have been standing in the center of a golf course as wide as China. The clarity of the air hurt her eyes. The smooth horizon didnât grow blue and hazy with distance. She wondered how far away the horizon was. She felt as if her eyes couldnât quite focus.
The sky above soared open, clear and heavy with light forthe complete circle above her head. The sky was a presence, a startling bright Bermuda-water blue. It stretched bigger by far than anything sheâd ever seen. The sky dwarfed the land in size and color and depth. In order to live in this world, Beryl knew she would have to resist the vast width of the sky and remember which part of the world she inhabited.
The town itself huddled against the ground. The one- or two-story prefab houses were all painted in dismal gray, beige and white. They had small windows. The parking lot was dirt. The concrete road heaved with cracks and bumps from winter. In front of the houses were parked pickup trucks and jeeps, vehicles that could drive on these roads and on the tracks past the airport and the town dump. No highways led out of town, for there was no place to drive to. The backyards of the last houses merged with the tundra that rolled outward, uninterrupted for five hundred miles. Everything from cars and fruit to vinyl siding and alcohol was brought in by plane or train. The town earned its income from fish and tourism.
Beryl thought that the buildings drained the surrounding scenery of beauty and balance. The dull colors, the dirt streets, the broken and heaving concrete. On the far side she could see boulders and then the road leading to the town dump, the sea open and gray beyond.
From the start of summer until the sea freezes again sometime in November, there isnât much for the bears to eat. They prefer to eat seal, are designed to hunt seal from the top ofthe ice. During the summer, when the ocean has melted, the bears lose up to one-third of their body weight.
Forty miles to the east of Churchill is Cape Churchill. The sea off the cape freezes the earliest of any place on Hudson Bay because of the fresh water pouring into the bay from the Churchill River. In October the bears begin to arrive in the area around Churchill in greater and greater numbers, waiting patiently without food through the months of October and November. They break into deserted cabins and haunt the town dump, licking the insides of old peanut butter jars clean with delicate black tongues. Then wander heavy and ghostlike through the streets of the town at midnight, chuffing thoughtfully to themselves like people with things on their minds. The moment the ice is strong enough to support their weight, they stalk off across it far from humans to their winter hunting grounds, to the frozen ocean and warm seals.
The bears donât respond predictably to people. Sometimes they run away, short tails flicking up in alarm. Sometimes they step forward, swinging their heads from side to side, sniffing. Sometimes they seek out and stalk humans, drifting behind them silent and white.
The townspeople keep their children and animals inside. Their houses have boarded-up windows, peepholes in doors, back steps with nails and cut glass sprinkled across them. They have a patrol car just for the polar bears. It cruises about at night with searchlights on the top, sirens, infrared binoculars.
When Beryl arrived, no humans had been killed by bears for three years. The townspeople repeated the fact with pride. They valued their tourist trade. Every visitor during October and November went out to the town dump in closed cars to watch the polar bears eat garbage.
The expedition began at the town dump. They would be staying for a week in Churchill to get pictures of the bears who lived on the garbage there. The morning after the team arrived, they drove out in a little Japanese van
The sky above soared open, clear and heavy with light forthe complete circle above her head. The sky was a presence, a startling bright Bermuda-water blue. It stretched bigger by far than anything sheâd ever seen. The sky dwarfed the land in size and color and depth. In order to live in this world, Beryl knew she would have to resist the vast width of the sky and remember which part of the world she inhabited.
The town itself huddled against the ground. The one- or two-story prefab houses were all painted in dismal gray, beige and white. They had small windows. The parking lot was dirt. The concrete road heaved with cracks and bumps from winter. In front of the houses were parked pickup trucks and jeeps, vehicles that could drive on these roads and on the tracks past the airport and the town dump. No highways led out of town, for there was no place to drive to. The backyards of the last houses merged with the tundra that rolled outward, uninterrupted for five hundred miles. Everything from cars and fruit to vinyl siding and alcohol was brought in by plane or train. The town earned its income from fish and tourism.
Beryl thought that the buildings drained the surrounding scenery of beauty and balance. The dull colors, the dirt streets, the broken and heaving concrete. On the far side she could see boulders and then the road leading to the town dump, the sea open and gray beyond.
From the start of summer until the sea freezes again sometime in November, there isnât much for the bears to eat. They prefer to eat seal, are designed to hunt seal from the top ofthe ice. During the summer, when the ocean has melted, the bears lose up to one-third of their body weight.
Forty miles to the east of Churchill is Cape Churchill. The sea off the cape freezes the earliest of any place on Hudson Bay because of the fresh water pouring into the bay from the Churchill River. In October the bears begin to arrive in the area around Churchill in greater and greater numbers, waiting patiently without food through the months of October and November. They break into deserted cabins and haunt the town dump, licking the insides of old peanut butter jars clean with delicate black tongues. Then wander heavy and ghostlike through the streets of the town at midnight, chuffing thoughtfully to themselves like people with things on their minds. The moment the ice is strong enough to support their weight, they stalk off across it far from humans to their winter hunting grounds, to the frozen ocean and warm seals.
The bears donât respond predictably to people. Sometimes they run away, short tails flicking up in alarm. Sometimes they step forward, swinging their heads from side to side, sniffing. Sometimes they seek out and stalk humans, drifting behind them silent and white.
The townspeople keep their children and animals inside. Their houses have boarded-up windows, peepholes in doors, back steps with nails and cut glass sprinkled across them. They have a patrol car just for the polar bears. It cruises about at night with searchlights on the top, sirens, infrared binoculars.
When Beryl arrived, no humans had been killed by bears for three years. The townspeople repeated the fact with pride. They valued their tourist trade. Every visitor during October and November went out to the town dump in closed cars to watch the polar bears eat garbage.
The expedition began at the town dump. They would be staying for a week in Churchill to get pictures of the bears who lived on the garbage there. The morning after the team arrived, they drove out in a little Japanese van
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