Hudson Bay is a Wildlife Photographer’s Dream!
In late October, we ran our Polar Bear Photography Tour of 2026 and the encounters were phenomenal. I hurriedly scribbled some notes while I was in the field each day, but the images tell the tale:
October 27 – 13 Bears
Polar Bears #1-2. After leaving our lodge in the middle of the tundra, we headed to the coast road on reports of a carcass. Found out first two bears. One sleeping. One moving over some rocks caught in the sun.
Polar Bear #3 was at the west end of Polar Bear Alley. Nice encounter super close. Walking along the beach and then up on the bluff.
Nice red fox hunting at the side of the road.
Polar Bears #4-11 Lots of bear roaming around the open tundra in the distance. Two much closer bears started sparring just as we arrived. They put on a spectacular show for about 20 minutes which gave us the opportunity to get some great shots and videos.
Polar Bear #12 A solo bear passing the Whale Racks. Nice view but a short encounter. Polar Bear #13 was taking a nap in the taiga. We left him and finished the day, back where we started with the two bears on the coast road. From his blood stained snout, you could clearly see one had been feeding on the carcass in our absense.
Not a bad start to the trip!
October 28th – 9 Bears
Polar Bears #1-3. Mom and 2 cubs opposite the gun range. Mom nursed the kids and then a curious red fox trotted up and frightened them. Mom bolted upright and cubs moved closer to her. I’m not sure if the fox was looking for scraps or something else.
Polar Bears #4-5. Two bears moving around Bird Cove but far from the trail. We left them to photograph more of the ‘Arctic Five’ namely an arctic hare and a flock of ptarmigans.
The final few bears were laying low, snoozing in awkward spots for us to shoot in, so we took proof of life shots here and there – because its hard not to press the shutter when there’s a bear laying next to you even if its not an award winning shot 🙂
PB#6. At the golf balls. A nice bear but too close to the road for us to get out so I snapped a shot from the window and we moved on.
PB#7 way out on the tundra near the gun range. To far for anything other then a proof of life shot but nice to watch him wandering around in the vastness of the open plain.
PB#8 at Radison’s Beach. Down low from the road. Shooting down on it was not a good angle, and reinforced why our ground level encounters are so much better than being in a high sided, wobbly tundra vehicle.
PB#9 Closer to town we stopped to look at a bear near a plane wreck we call Miss Piggy. The bear wasn’t particularly photogenic but the plane itself is an interesting local landmark.
Swinging back through Polar Bear Alley, we did not see any bears, but we spotted a red fox that proved to be very bold, approaching closely and posing for endless portraits.
We finished the day on Crows Nest; a high promontory in Bird Cove. As we soaked in the starkly beautiful vista, a flock of Ptarmigans flew in and settled next to us.
October 29 – 11 Bears
Polar Bears #1-4. The mom and two cubs from yesterday were still in the area but they’d moved further back from the trail so we left them to look for closer bears. In Bird Cove we found a young bear walking along the beach. When he reached the far end of the beach, two larger bears materialized out of the rocks and he took flight, disappearing over a rocky ledge.
Polar Bears #5-6. We stayed with the larger bears while they wrestled, hoping they would stand up and start sparring. They never really committed, but they still put on a good show.
Polar Bears #5-6. Whiel we were watching the semi-sparring bears, one of our bear guards spotted a Richardson’s Collared Lemming. Lemmings are abundant on the tundra, but extremely hard to photograph. This one was strangely oblivious to the gathering crowd around him, so I got down on my belly and started started shooting. He stayed out in the open, nibbling on seeds, for a good 7-8 minutes. Very odd, but a great photo op for one on the tundras smallest but very important mammals.
Polar Bear #7 was on the coast road near town. Just a blob on the rocks. Following the coast east, we caught up with the mom and cubs sniffing along the shore probably trying to stay clear of large males that would predate on her cubs if they had half a chance.
Polar Bear #8 was lost in the willows at the Golf Balls.
We returned to bird cove to film a beautiful bear lounging on a granite slope in fantastic light. Probably the one we saw running from the bigger bears earlier.
Polar Bears #9-10. Looking east towards buggy land, we counted two more bears, too far to photograph, but moving in our direction.
Polar Bear #11. A big bear framed in the late afternoon sun approached really closely on the beach. Great finish to the day.
October 30
Polar Bears #1-4 We started the day with a small bear in great light on the west side of Bird Cove, followed by two bears in not so great light on the east side of the cove.
While waiting for the bears to get into a better position, we spotted a fourth bear walking in from the east across the tidal flats. He was huge, but he settled in the willows too far for photos.
Polar Bears #5-6 The next bear was on a frozen lake; yet another difficult to film bear.
We reversed back into the cove to find a small bear that hadn’t learn to fear humans and walked directly to our group, forcing us back into the van before she moved off.
Polar Bears #7-8. Yet another bear was making its way over from the east tidal flats, but we lost it when we were distracted by another big bear that boldly approached, again forcing us back inside the vehicle.
We then spotted the two bears we had seen earlier, now walking together towards the west side of the cove. The slightly smaller one was staying very close to the larger one, so we figured it was probably a three year old cub that mom had not driven away yet.
Polar Bear #9. Another big solo bear approached us while we were on the top of an outcrop called Crows Nest. He came in so quickly we had to abandon our tripods and retreat to the van, but not before getting some nice approach shots.
We caught up with him again at Ithaca Point. This is a great spot to film bears curving around the bay because you can get right down on the sand for some really dramatic images and video.
He turned out to be a real star, moving relentlessly west, delivering close encounter after close encounter.
Polar Bear #10. Our final bear of the day was sleeping on the far bank of a lake. We let sleeping bears lie and headed back to White Whale Lodge.
October 31 – 18 Bears
Polar Bear #1 Our first encounter of the day was with a very small bear snoozing on a rocky ledge in Bird Cove.
Polar Bears #2-3. An excellent encounter with two sparring males on the east side of Bird Cove. Great photo opportunities!
Polar Bear #4. A small bear walked in from the east and approached the two sparring males. One of the males gave chase and the smaller bear beat a hasty retreat, moving onto open ground and looking back warily before heading off over the rocks.
For the next couple of hours we had some mediocre encounters with distant or partially hidden bears.
Polar Bears #5-7. Mom with two cubs out in no man’s land where we could not reach them. We watched them milling around for a while. Mom clearly wanted to go north but the cubs pulled her southwest towards Great White Bear Tour’s workshop. Inevitably, they got hazed by the staff and they headed deeper into the tundra.
Polar Bears #8-9 across a lake in the willows. Then another in a bad spot between the whale racks and Stiggy Creek. The latter bear started chasing something small in a willow grove then settled down for a nap.
Polar Bear #10 was on the road but heavily obscured by brush.
Polar Bear #11-15 At the gun range. Two way off in the flats. The third chasing the fourth on the ice. And a fifth walking much closer in nice light but he moved away as we approached.
Really nice red fox playing on the ice in Polar Bear Alley.
Polar Bears #16-17 A big bear on the beach next to the lodge, then a young bear on the coat road taking too much interest in vehicles.
We returned to Bird Cove to find the mom with two cubs laying in a perfect position on the far side of a small pond. We watched the babies play and snuggle with their mother until the sun descended behind them for the perfect finish to a flawless week.
Polar Bear #18. There was one more distant bear on the way back to the lodge, but by then, we’d taken all the images we wanted.
