Day off activites! - August 11

Day 8
Today was our day off to tour Churchill. We woke up much later than usual because we only had to hit the road at 9:15. We had to dress warmly because the weather was cold and it was raining really hard. But no matter how many layers we wore it wouldn’t be enough to save us from the bone chilling cold we were about to endure. It was probably the worst possible day, out of all the days we had been here, to go whale watching but we did so nonetheless.
We were all pretty much soaked by the time we boarded the boat. Between the ocean spray and the rain our faces were frozen within minutes of riding to Prince of Wales Fort. We toured Prince of Wales Fort which could potentially have been fun on a nicer day but with the weather as it was we weren’t in the mood for learning where the soldiers of the Hudson Bay Company slept at night. After seeking refuge by the door of the fort, we made our way down to the boat. The captain had to call the group (which was made up of primarily senior citizens) to hurry up because the choppy seas were doing a number on the docked boat. We finally started to whale watch. It was amazing to see the massive white Beluga whales in their natural habitat. Their dolphin like faces would emerge for a split second only to be followed by their tails back into the water. It was almost impossible not to see a whale because they completely surrounded the boat. We were so freezing after a while that the whales started to lose their majesty. We were all relieved to get off the boat and back into the van.
We had to go back to the study center to get dry clothes because it would have been far to unpleasant to stay in our wet clothes all day. We then drove back in to Churchill to have lunch at a cafe called Gypsy’s. We all had a good laugh here when Varun, a vegetarian, ordered a cheeseburger thinking that for some reason it would be a veggie burger. We laughed even harder when he ordered a cheese pizza and then mistakenly ate Leanne’s veggie pizza.
We then went to various shops to get souvenirs and things of that nature. We looked everywhere for bug zappers but they were sold out everywhere. We then made our way back to the center for dinner after going to see the Eskimo dogs again. Before bed, we watched Ice Age in the upstairs classroom.