Coexisting with Apex Predators: What We Can Learn from Churchill, MB

Churchill, a small town on the western shore of Hudson Bay, exists in a fragile balance between wilderness and community. Known internationally as the “Polar Bear Capital of the World,” this Canadian town is one of the few places where humans and polar bears inhabit the same landscape for much of the year.

As the sea ice slowly forms every fall, the bears wait to return to the frozen bay to hunt seals, their paths cross with those of residents, researchers, and visitors. Yet, encounters are rarely accidental, which is a testament to the long history of adaptation, knowledge, and reverence for the land.

Photo: Kimberley Megis. Churchill, October 2024

The Town of Churchill, Manitoba 

Churchill is situated on the western coastline of Hudson Bay, at the mouth of the Churchill River. The community was established on Treaty 5 territory, the traditional homelands of the Swampy Cree, Sayisi Dene, Métis, and Inuit people.

Long before European arrival, the region was a multicultural meeting place. The Pre-Dorset and Dorset people were the first inhabitants of the Churchill area. 

By 1000 AD, Thule people from the western arctic arrived and displaced the Dorset culture. Unlike the Pre-Dorset and Dorset people who followed and hunted seals and caribou, the Thule people, who later evolved into the present Inuit culture, hunted marine animals, such as whales, seals and walrus.

By 500 AD, Athapascan-speaking Dene arrived in northern Manitoba from the west, and hunted Barren-ground caribou.

Before European contact, the region around present-day Churchill was part of an extensive trading and cultural network linking the Cree, Dene, and Inuit peoples.  These Indigenous routes and relationships formed the foundations of what would later become the fur trade, shaping the flow of European goods and technologies throughout the continent.

European exploration of the Hudson Bay coast began in the early seventeenth century, with Henry Hudson reaching the bay in 1610. In 1619, Danish explorer Jens Munck led an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage, wintering near the mouth of the Churchill River, where most of his crew perished from scurvy and cold. 

By the late seventeenth century, European interest shifted from exploration to commerce as English and French traders recognized the area’s abundance of fur-bearing animals. The Hudson’s Bay Company established fortified posts along the coast and Indigenous traders, who travelled immense distances each summer, became essential partners in this new economy, bringing furs trapped through the winter to exchange for goods such as firearms, textiles, and metal tools. Of course, epidemics such as smallpox, introduced through trade routes, devastated nearby Cree communities in the eighteenth century, profoundly altering the demographic and cultural landscape.

In the twentieth century, Churchill’s role shifted from commerce to transportation and defence. The completion of the Hudson Bay Railway in 1929 linked the town to the Canadian interior, transforming it into a strategic northern port. Grain shipments from the Prairies began to move through Churchill to Europe, a project intended to strengthen Canada’s Arctic sovereignty and economic reach. During the Cold War, the town became a military outpost; the Churchill Rocket Range, operated by the Canadian and American governments, conducted upper-atmosphere research and missile tests between the 1950s and 1980s. The presence of the military and scientific personnel brought temporary growth, new infrastructure, and transient populations. Yet when operations declined, Churchill was left to redefine its purpose in a rapidly modernizing North.

By the late twentieth century, tourism emerged as the town’s primary economic pillar. The seasonal arrival of polar bears waiting for the sea ice transformed Churchill into an international destination. Wildlife photography, Arctic research, and eco-tourism replaced military and industrial activity, while freight interruptions and rail closures underscored the community’s isolation. Today, Churchill’s population of fewer than a thousand people reflects a diverse mix of Indigenous residents, long-term settlers, and seasonal workers.

Photo: Kimberley Megis. Churchill, October 2024

A Year in a Polar Bear’s Life: Why They Approach Town

The life of a polar bear is defined by the rhythm of sea ice. As the largest land carnivore on Earth, it depends almost entirely on the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean for survival. Polar bears are highly specialized hunters, relying on sea ice as a platform from which to stalk and capture their main prey: seals. 

During the cold months, when the bay freezes, bears travel vast distances across the ice, waiting patiently beside seal breathing holes or breaking into snow-covered dens where pups are born. In Hudson Bay, where ice melts completely each summer, this cycle dictates their survival. When the ice breaks up, usually around July, the bears are forced onto land, where food is scarce. They enter a prolonged fasting period that can last four months or more, living almost entirely off the stored fat accumulated during their hunting season.

This compressed feeding window makes the polar bear acutely vulnerable to environmental change. On land, the bears scavenge for berries, kelp, or carcasses, but these foods provide little of the energy they require. As climate change shortens the duration of sea ice, the bears’ hunting season shrinks, forcing them to spend more time ashore and less time feeding. This shift has direct consequences for their health, reproduction, and survival rates.

The western shore of Hudson Bay, where Churchill sits, is one of the first places to refreeze each year, making it a natural gathering point for bears eager to resume feeding. During this waiting period, the bears are at their hungriest and often wander close to town in search of food or simply as they follow the shoreline. The smells of waste, stored meat, or dog teams can draw them toward human settlements, and as a result, encounters between residents and bears become increasingly frequent in late October and November.

Churchill’s location, directly along the bears’ traditional travel corridor, places it at the centre of this delicate seasonal convergence between human habitation and the Arctic’s most powerful predator.

How Churchill Lives with Polar Bears

"It's their area too. It's important how the community coexists with bears and wildlife in general to really get along. We're all connected." Mayor Mike Spence said.[1]

Living alongside polar bears in the Canadian Arctic - BBC World Service

Churchill has developed one of the most comprehensive coexistence systems in the world to manage its relationship with polar bears. When the bears gather along the coast, the town transforms into a place of constant vigilance. The Polar Bear Alert Program, operated by Manitoba Conservation Officers, patrols the town streets and outskirts daily to monitor bear movements and prevent encounters. Residents are trained to report any sightings immediately, and warning sirens alert the community when a bear enters town. Conservation officers use flares, cracker shells, and rubber bullets designed to drive bears away without harming them.

When deterrence fails, problem bears are captured and taken to the Polar Bear Holding Facility, locally known as “bear jail.” There, bears are kept in isolation for up to thirty days, without food but with access to water, which reinforces the association between entering town and negative consequences.

Photo: Kimberley Megis. Polar Bear Holding Facility in Churchill, October 2024

This coexistence system, built over decades of trial and adaptation, reflects both practicality and respect. It, however, was not always the case. In fact, before formal patrols and the establishment of the Polar Bear Alert Program in the 1980s, residents relied on self-protection and local enforcement to drive bears away. Bears that entered town were frequently shot. The shift toward non-lethal management emerged as awareness grew about the ecological and ethical importance of the species.

Shooting the bear “used to be the answer” explained Geoff York, Senior Director of Research and Policy at Polar Bears International.[2]

The town’s approach now embodies a rare ethic of coexistence, accepting that living on the edge of Hudson Bay means sharing space.

Photo: Kimberley Megis. Churchill, October 2024

The Importance of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge

The evolution of Churchill’s coexistence practices reflects a growing recognition of Indigenous traditional knowledge, which has long guided relationships between humans and wildlife in the region. 

“In addition to insights passed down from generation to generation, Indigenous Knowledge (IK) also encompasses current and more recent observations, including those related to polar bears in a warming Arctic. These insights can deepen our understanding of the bears, and help guide management decisions.”[3]

Learn more about how Polar Bears International studies the importance of Indigenous Knowledge here

Cree, Dene, Inuit and Métis always describe bears as highly intelligent, stealthy hunters that prefer the sea ice when it is available. They also highlight that bears are now more habituated to human settlements than in generations past. Longstanding local observations suggest that while some areas still support healthy denning and reproduction, other places that once held many bears now appear depleted. These experiential records complement scientific monitoring and often document more frequent sightings and family groups onshore than formal surveys register.

Indigenous knowledge holders trace shifts in human–bear relations from ritualized, respect-based arrangements to the instrumental management introduced under colonial rule. Indigenous systems, once governed harvests through cultural protocols, while colonization and commercial pressures brought lethal control and the normalization of attractants such as open dumps. 

Despite appreciation for the Polar Bear Alert program, knowledge holders raise concerns about current management and research practices, and question the effects of capture, sedation, and satellite-collaring on bear welfare, while pointing to gaps in communication between visiting scientists and community members.

Photo: Kimberley Megis. Churchill, October 2024

Lessons Beyond the Arctic

Churchill provides a living framework for how humans can coexist with apex predators in diverse ecosystems. What has unfolded on the edge of Hudson Bay resonates far beyond the Arctic, offering valuable insights for communities negotiating shared landscapes with grizzly bears, wolves, and other large carnivores.

Churchill demonstrates that coexistence is not the product of technological control or rigid management alone, but of evolving relationships grounded in respect, observation, and shared responsibility.

Grizzly bears in the Rockies and wolves in boreal forests evoke the same complex mix of awe, dependence, and apprehension. Churchill reminds us that in regions where humans and wildlife share land, local and Indigenous knowledge is equally critical. Centuries of observation have taught how to read behaviour, interpret signs, move safely within shared territory, and protect.

What Churchill illustrates is that coexistence depends on dialogue and adaptability. The town’s non-lethal deterrence tools, waste management systems, and community-wide vigilance could inform similar initiatives in areas where grizzly bears or wolves intersect with expanding human activity. Yet, just as important is the ethical dimension: recognizing predators as integral to ecosystem health rather than as threats to be removed.

Churchill shows us that harmony with predators arises not from isolation but from attentiveness: a willingness to learn, to adapt, and to see survival as a shared act within a living landscape. 

Visit Polar Bears International

Photo: Kimberley Megis. Churchill, October 2024

About the Author

Kimberley has a M.Sc from the University of Montreal. She is passionate about biodiversity and Indigenous peoples' land rights. Kimberley has been working with NGOs for over five years as a researcher, writer, and translator.

[1] CBC News. “Churchill Residents Living with Polar Bears.” CBC, 20 Nov. 2022, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/churchill-residents-living-with-polar-bears-1.7385478.

[2] Fitz, Mike. “Living With Bears in Churchill.” Medium, 11 Dec. 2018, medium.com/@exploreorg/living-with-bears-in-churchill-c5913ef6d668

[3] Polar Bears International. “Indigenous Knowledge.” Polar Bears International, https://polarbearsinternational.org/what-we-do/research/indigenous-knowledge/.