There are only a few places on the planet where humans can see polar bears in their natural environment, and, even then, for just a brief window before winter sets in.

But during the last weeks of autumn — usually from the middle of October to early November — no place on Earth has more polar bears than Churchill, Manitoba. It is here that hundreds of bears, stranded by melting pack ice, spend the warmer months (a relative measure this far north) waiting for temperatures to drop and the ice to form again so they can start hunting and fatten up for the colder months. During these few weeks, visitors can take carefully guided tours to see the bears, heading outside of the historic, frontier town of Churchill to clamber aboard tundra buggies for a day of inching along rutted trails in search of wildlife.