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By CINDA CHAVICH

(CHURCHILL, Manitoba) – It’s raining hard as we head out through the grey swells toward Hudson Bay and, like me, my expensive digital camera is tightly swaddled in waterproof material.

The camera is sealed in a plastic dry bag. I’m zipped into a neoprene wetsuit, a thick second skin designed to guard my limbs from the shock of icy arctic water. I’m here to swim with the beluga whales but, scanning the dark choppy seas and similar skies, I’m doubtful there will be any photographic evidence.

Like any wildlife watching expedition, the beluga snorkeling tours offered each summer are dependent on variables beyond the tour operators’ control, namely weather and whales. Factor in a nervous writer who can’t swim and chances are slim to none that I will actually see one of these snow white mammals under water.

But despite my very brief period afloat in the chilly northern seas, I actually do see the ghostly greenish glow of belugas through the dark water before I clumsily haul myself back into the boat. And while my three tour mates continue to bob face down in the drink, gurgling happily through their snorkel tubes, I watch more whales approach our little zodiac from the top side, their bright white and grey backs breaking the dark surface like torpedoes.

After 40 minutes in the frigid water we’re all back in the boat, watching whales in the rain. It’s not a picture postcard day, but the belugas are all around us, and it’s a thrilling experience to see so much wildlife in one small spot.

This is the best place in the world to swim with these friendly white whales. More than 3,000 individuals summer in the Churchill River Estuary and Mike Macri, a photographer who runs Sea North whale-watching tours throughout July and August, says he sees belugas here every day.

He has the stunning photographs to prove it – dozens of individuals floating beneath the clear, blue-green arctic water, belugas playfully bumping kayaks, and coming close enough for tourists to touch their bulbous brows.

Today’s rough weather is unusual, he says. As it turns out, tomorrow isn’t any better, and our plan to kayak with the whales is thwarted.

“I’ll be glad when you people go home,” says Macri as we approach his boat launch again the next day to join a regular whale watching tour on the Sea North II. It seems that the weather turned stormy the day our group arrived in Churchill – and it’s not until our final day, out hiking the spectacular wild flower-covered coast – that the sun finally breaks out again.

Despite the stiff winds, there are enough beluga sightings today to make our outing a success. From high above in the captain’s crow’s nest I see their fat foreheads and smiling snouts break the water before they dive again for the capelin, shrimp and whitefish feast that keeps them feeding here throughout the short arctic summer.

Macri is the local beluga expert. Before we set off, he gives an impromptu whale 101 lecture on the shore, producing some sun-bleached beluga skulls to help explain how these playful and intelligent “sea canaries” communicate, using chirping sounds to echolocate and find food up to 1,000 metres under the ice.

“Their brain is bigger than ours, and we think they’re pretty bright,” he explains, pointing to the whale’s blubbery “melon”. Belugas are also the only cetaceans that do not have fused neck bones, so they can turn their heads in all directions.

“They can move their heads up and down and side to side,” he says. “They like to get a good look at you - be prepared to get seriously checked out.”

Global warming is making life difficult for polar bears but belugas are thriving. This year there were many calves, he says, and we see small mottled babies and grey adolescents among the snowy white adults.

Whales are no longer hunted here so the belugas are not fearful of humans. Polar bears and killer whales are their main predators, the former seen more often these days hunting the three-meter whales from the rocky shores of Hudson Bay.

Polar bears prove to be especially elusive during our short, four-day visit to Churchill, despite the fact that the local population numbers nearly 1,000. One is spotted behind a hotel in town while we’re out searching the back roads for another, and locals regale us with tales of the big bears hiding under porches or breaking into their houses. But, except for stuffed specimens, our only sighting is of a mother and cub barely visible in the distance.

Still, the unseasonably cold August weather keeps the mosquitoes and black flies at bay, and there is plenty to experience here on the edge of the arctic.

For one thing, the late summer sun is rich and golden, casting its intense low light across a landscape in bloom.

Here, where summer is so short, plants compress their reproduction season into a few riotous weeks of color and walking the coast is magical, the bogs dotted with orchids and lady slippers, the shining tidal flats of Hudson Bay backed by smooth glaciated rocks, and a sea of fuchsia fireweed.

This is the taiga – the sub arctic strip of between Canada’s northern boreal forest and treeless tundra – and it is a rare ecosystem, home to arctic fox, caribou, bears and birds, a stark landscape studded with stunted black spruce and dwarf tamarack, moss and electric orange lichen. Millions of Lesser Snow Geese and caribou migrate through each year. The summer sunsets are spectacular.

In tiny Churchill (pop. 750), you’ll find a rich Native culture, evident in the beautifully-beaded moccasins and hand-crafted fur hats at the Arctic Trading Company, and marvel at the incredible collection of Inuit carvings and artifacts at the historic Eskimo Museum. The Churchill Northern Studies Centre attracts working scientists and students, and offers several learning vacations for visitors, including a five-day Biology of the Beluga Whale program.

And while the polar bears aren’t gathered in one place – as they are in the late fall – you can head out in a Tundra Buggy (a bus jacked up on massive tires) in the summer, too, to look for the bears that are scattered along the shoreline. Enjoying a barbecue of caribou burgers on the tundra, as the sun sets over sweeping arctic vistas, is hard to beat, whether they cue the wildlife or not.

IF YOU GO:

Fly to Churchill on Calm Air (www.calmair.com) or take the 1,700 km (36-50-hour) journey from Winnipeg to Churchill on Via Rail that runs three times per week (www.viarail.ca)

Plan to snorkel or kayak with the belugas with Sea North Tours (www.seanorthtours.com) or hike with guide Paul Ratson of Nature 1st Tours (www.nature1sttours.ca)

Stay at the Seaport Hotel in Churchill (204-675-8807) or at the Up the Creek B&B on Goose Creek Road (204-675-2655). Webber’s Lodges also offers summer Birds, Bears and Belugas adventures on the Seal River estuary from their Seal River Heritage Lodge (www.churchillwild.com)

Gypsy’s Bakery & Deli is the local hangout for breakfast, lunch or casual dinners (from monster cinnamon buns and butter tarts to pan-fried pickerel) or dine on local specialties like caribou pepper steak and musk ox rouladen at The Lazy Bear Café (www.lazybearlodge.com)

For more information visit www.destinationchurchill.com or www.travelmanitoba.com

(This story first appeared in the Globe and Mail newspaper)

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ECO-ADVENTURES: Bobbing for belugas

photos by Cinda Chavich

The arctic is home to belugas, fireweed and spectacular sunsets