We’re Going to Look for Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba!

Hello Everyone!

For those in the northern hemisphere, how is this autumn wrapping up for you? We had a gorgeous fall here in Vermont.

What has happened?!
We had a record breaking year at Camp Plymouth. Last year our park did not surpass 40,000 visitors. This year we had almost 47,000 visitors! We were a ton busier and had at least eight 1000+ppl days. Vermont State Parks on a whole has surpassed 1 million visitors.

All in all, only a few minor incidents in our park. An odd trend this year was kids getting stuck in baby swings. Hopefully that will be a passing fad this year.

We had a great team and made a Camp Plymouth 2022 Memories Video below. Just in case it doesn’t embed here’s the link: https://youtu.be/dFhwX414Ir8

In some exciting news, we do have an upcoming trip planned and coming up very quickly!
This week we will be driving 34 hrs to Thomspon, Canada → to then take an overnight train (because there are no roads to get there) to Churchill, Canada to see polar bears!

Churchill is one of the best places in the world to observe polar bears and we hope to have success in doing so.

After serendipitously meeting and hanging out with professional photographer Dean from Dean Perrus Photography, he gave us the nudge to get to the next step with our photography.

So we are heading out with better photography equipment, lots of memory cards and some warm gloves to hang out in Churchill and shoot wildlife (hopefully polar bears!) and landscape photography.

A few other tidbits of noteworthy news is we were honored to have one of our Molly Stark State Park photos selected to be the cover photo for Northern Woodlands Magazine Online Annual Report.

Northern Woodlands is a non-profit quarterly magazine. The latest Outside Story article I had published there was about southern bog lemmings. If you want to support them, a subscription or gift subscription to someone else is a fantastic way to do so. They also have some nice selections in their gift shop.

We also passed the jury selection process and are now artists on display at the Vault Gallery in Springfield, VT. The Vault is a wonderful display of various Vermont artists…a great place to look for a local gift for the holidays.

With the holidays coming up, purchases being made, and most of us looking for ways to stretch our paychecks, I still give a gentle nudge if you have any interest in trying out Rakuten as a cash back browsing app, Chris and I just racked up another $60-plus! To date I have earned back $117 on purchases I was going to make anyway. Currently they just increased the offer and if you sign up the bonus is $40!

What adventures, both near and far, what have you been up to? I have so enjoyed seeing some of the photos some of you have been sharing! After these two wonky years, it’s so exciting to think of getting back to easier traveling again.

That said, there is still a lot of heaviness to the world and raising prices all over the globe are felt. The upcoming holidays can normally create a lot of strain, both mentally and financially on people. Remember it’s ok to have a talk with your family and friends about how to handle the holidays and create a consumption plan. Talk about the wishes and goals of the holidays ahead of time – maybe you tweak or limit your gift giving this year. So much consumerism happens, and this year wallets are especially tight for many. Maybe this is a great opportunity to reduce consumption and increase quality time (and food!) enjoyed together instead.

Ok, we have to get packing! There is over 34 hours of driving to be done. Ahhhhh! I will be glad when that part is over.

A little intel on the small guest house we are staying at in Churchill. When I finally got a hold of the guy, we chatted about a room, and then he says, ‘Ok, ok, you got the room on those dates, but I’m in the middle of selecting my sports draft picks and I also don’t have my credit card machine set up yet, can you call back in two days?”

“Haha – sure!” I said. I think it’s our kinda place. 🙂

If you’re not already following, check out facebook, youtube, instagram, twitter or linkedin where we will post as much as we are able to.

Polar bears here we come!!!

Until next time,

Tiff and Chris