Hi guys!

So I made it home safe and sound, but my bag got stuck in Churchill...so hopefully I will get those tomorrow...ALL My clothes are that bag!

Basically, there was too much baggage for the little plane so some of it is being shipped out today. Mine is one of those.

I can't believe I'm home. I miss everyone SOO much, and I hope to get the list of email addresses from Caroline very soon, because I feel so sad that I can't talk to the people I have began to regard as my family. I've been seperated from them less than a day and I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to stand it.

So everyone who has kept up to date with my journal, thank you =) I don't believe I will be writing in this anymore, but you never know. When I do some interviews and such I might post about them on here.

Thanks again everyone, especially the Oregon Zoo and the OZ Zooguides for making this all possible for me, and to Robert and Caroline for making the experience AMAZING.

Until Later,
Kourtney

So today is my last day with all of these wonderful people that I have began to call my 'new family'. Its amazing how close all 14 of us (and some of the teachers, too!) have become over these past 11 or so days, and I'm going to miss them all dearly.

We are packing up our things to leave the Tundra hotel, and head off for the Churchill Airport so that we can get to the hotel in Winnipeg...again. I don't know what the rest of the day has in store. All I know, is that Emma and I will be the first to leave, our plane being in the air at 6:20am.

I'm going to miss this place =(

Now that we are back in Winnipeg, I guess I should reflect on the whole trip.

I personally think that I've changed in little ways, nothing huge that is going to TOTALLY turn my life upside down.

Everyone here has impacted me. Everyone here has treated me like family, and as I said before, its amazing how close we have all become in these short days.

I've got to say that I have a much more educated few on the impacts that global warming is having on not only the arctic, but what the impacts will be all over the globe if things dont change this century.

Not only has it showed me this, but it has also showed me how I can deal and react with different people and different personalities. Although, for the most part, we all got along great, as with ANY group of people, there are going to be those that clash. It's shown me how I can deal with myself in these situations, and not only have I learned a lot about global warming, polar bears, the environment, etc, but I've learned a lot about myself also.

This will probably be my last journal entry, but I might add one when I get home from a day of flying tomorrow.

Until Later,
Kourtney

PICTURES

A helicopter identical to the one that I was in:


Different sections of landscape as we flew. The trees are farther north that where we are camped out..





Oh my god...thats all that can describe this day..

It started out with breakfast, and like usual, it was delicious. I'm hungry right now, so I'm not even going to start talking about food....

After that we talked about the helicopters and such that we were to go on today. It made me more anxious than I thought I would ever be.

After that, we talked with one of the people that works with the helicopters, signed a waver and such, then got in our groups to leave.

Going there, my group of people was the last to leave. We Had a small 5 person (thats including pilot) helicopter, and on the way there, I was in the back seat, squished in the middle. It was an AWESOME ride! I couldn't believe how different it was than a plane! I'm used to the whole 'speeding up down the runway and then taking off slowly'...I hate that...this is NOTHING like that!! One second you're on the ground, the next you are up crusing! It was surreal.

After we landed, we all got the chance to squish into the polar bears den. I couldn't BELIEVE how small it was! I could barely crawl in there and turn around, so how can a MASSIVE pregnant polar bear get in there??? It was CRAZY!!!

The ground out there was strange, it was spongy and covered in lichen and berries. I stained a pair of my jeans. The back of them are all streaked with purple berry juice. =P My present from the tundra!

When we went to leave, we were once again the last helicopter to leave, but I got to sit in the front this time (John, or Captain as we call him) let me sit up front, and it was an even better ride than the first!

Especially, because on our way back, we saw what we thought was a bear. We circled a couple times before we could find it again, and it wasn't a bear, it was an ARCTIC WOLF! They are so rare to see around here, and we saw TWO of them! It was SOOO exciting!

And, considering its only about 1pm right now, I'm wondering what else might happen today!

I got quite a few good landscape pictures while in the air, so later on tonight I will put them up if possible. So please, check back later!

So, heres a little list of what I plan on doing with all the information that I've gathered while I've been here.

First off, I plan on doing a presentation to the ZooTeens and the ZooGuides. My top priority would have to be the ZooGuides of the Oregon Zoo, seeing how they are the people that payed for me to be here! I can't put into words how much I appreciate you guys =).

The next step for me would be a follow up in my local paper, along with giving a presentation in one of my classes. From there, I'm going to try and put an article in our school paper.

I also hope that I will have some interviews set up and ready to go, which I more than likely will have coming up shortly after I return.

I'm just looking forward to ANYTHING that I can do to help!

Till Tomorrow,
Kourtney

PICTURES

An InukShuk (Basically a landmark by the Inuits)



The male that showed up at the lodge:




So not much happened today. Today was basically a 'work on our projects and present them like mad-men' day. We each did 2 presentations in our group, held a video conference with a school in Manitoba (which was a lot of fun) and held a few discussions.

We did see one male polar bear, that we believe was a different one than any other that we've seen. If thats the case, then we've seen at least 6 different bears that we know of.

Tomorrow we take the helicopters to the maternal den. I also have to work on my poem for our poem day thing that became a 'tradition' from last year. Ahh, literature...I HATE POEMS!!! Oh well...

Although we didn't go out on the tundra much today, I did see some neat things. I know the tide goes in and out up here, but I didn't realize how far it did come in! Its amazing! Once it is in all the way (which is working on now) I will post a few pictures, along with a couple of the male we saw today!


Till Tomorrow,
Kourtney

PICTURES

Mom is standing up, worried as she lost sight of her son:


Her son runs up to her, nosing her and acting like he was 'apologizing':


Some closer pictures of her son, who is the curious of the three bears!



And my favorite little bird, a ptarmigan (a Churchill Chicken!)


Hope you liked them!
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So its still just morning, 7:50am to be exact, and already theres been quite a few exciting things.

It was great last night, laying in bed and being able to look out my little window and see the northern lights dancing across the sky. Thats what I remember falling asleep to.

Then this morning right after waking up, our mother and 2 cubs returned to the lodge. They hung out in the willows and grasses while we ate breakfast. How many people can say that they've sat and eaten breakfast next to wild polar bears? It was great.

Later this afternoon, we went back out on the tundra buggies where we gave our presentations that we prepared from the book. That was interesting! We ran across the Einstien group again, and a couple of other bears.

Now we are back here, looking at the mother and cubs that are STILL here! They seem to be enjoying us as much as we are enjoying them!

And WOW have I got some amazing pictures! I didn't think I'd get some of them as great as I did. My favorite one today is one that I took of the male cub coming up to its mother, touching her nose and licking her chin. I got a picture of that with a grassy background, and it looks SO good!!! I can't wait to share them and use them in presentations!!!

Thats about it for today!

Till Tomorrow,
Kourtney

So today was AWESOME!

We went out to the Tundra Buggy Lodge today, which basically consists of 5 Tundra Buggies (2 cars with bunks in them for the people, a dining car, and a lounge car) but not before we went out on the tundra in our Buggy. We drove around for a while before actually seeing anything, but eventually we found a few birds, like a ptarmigan (which was probably my favorite find of the day). We saw a few arctic hare also. Two of them were actually white, while one was kind of grey and looked like it was going bald.

We found a polar bear, too! It was a subadult male that was actually just lounging around, he didn't do much the 3 times we went and watched him today, just layed around, but it was still cool to see our first wild polar bear! Then later, after going to the Lodge to drop off our baggage, we saw another walking in the distance. That was neat.

Along with the hare, ptarmigan, and bear, we saw an arctic fox, some Canadian geese (surprise surprise) and some other little birds. I saw a raven, too, and it was HUGE compared to the crows I'm used to!

So thats about all that happened today!!

UPDATE:

So we just had a mom and two cubs (what they out here call an Enstein or an MC2(M=mother, C=cubs). I took probably 150 pictures of just them!!! They were AMAZING!

Till Tomorrow,
Kourtney

So today was interesting. I was actually pretty sick most of the day and last night. An upset stomach, and EXTREME heartburn....

ANYWAYS, onto what actually HAPPENED today. We basically went on a tour with Kelsey (and I unfortunately don't know his last name) and he brought us all over the place. My favorite was probably when we went out on a little beach. Although it was FREEZING, it was fun. We found a young beluga whale skull on the beach, and then there was basically a place where it looked like some predator got a bunch of geese. There were feathers, wings, and bones EVERYWHERE. It was kind of gross, but interesting at the same time.

We also talked to the Parks Canada people (its basically a little tiny museum run by the people that work at the Trainstation) and played a fun little game about polar bears. Then we had a presentation by one of the ranger guys ( i don't know what they are exactly called) but one of the guys that runs around the town and chases polar bears away. In other words, one of the people that work for the Polar Bear Alert system. We learned about how they dart the bears, what they do with the bears when they dart them (like give them ear tags, a lip tattoo, etc).

That reminds me! We went to the "bear jail" today, which is where they catch and put bears that are frequently bothering the town. When we were there, some of the ranger guys told us to move the bus, then pulled a truck inside. While talking to the man that gave us the presentation, he told us that there was a bear inside that truck!

We have yet to see a bear, however, but we might be going to the maternal dens tomorrow!

Till tomorrow,
Kourtney

So we went to Churchill today! It was a CRAZY flight! We were in a propeller plane, and it was SMALL. It was a fairly good flight, except for at the end when they told us that we had to circle because of weather conditions. We were in a TON of cloud cover, and when we finally went in for our final approach, I was looking out the window to see the ground as we went down.

Clouds...clouds...more clouds...I didn't see the ground till we were literally about 50 feet above it. It was SCARY!!!!

Other than the flight, there isn't really much going on today. Tomorrow we will be doing something a little more fun!

So for now, thats it!

Till tomorrow,
Kourtney

So here is the REAL September 30th entry!

Today, we met with some of our guest speakers. There was Bob Taylor, whos an author and a photographer. I LOVED his pictures. Probably the most influencial person on me today was Heidi Cook, though. She's part Cree (one of the native groups of people up here) and told us some stuff about the past of her people (hope that made sense) and talked about the effects of global warming on their culture.

Later, we took box lunches to the sculpture gardens, then headed over to the little zoo over there and had a mock debate. It was pretty interesting. It was about having polar bears in captivity and the wild. We then wandered around the zoo for a bit. This zoo has a TON of birds, DEFINATELY heaven for me. They even had a kind of lorikeet I hadn't heard of, a Collard (or Solitary) Lorikeet! It was awesome!

I guess thats it for today!

Till tomorrow,
Kourtney

First off, this is actually the September 29th entry!

Well, I finally arrived in Winnipeg! After 4 and a half hours of long, boring, cramped, noisy airplanes, I'm finally here in the most luxurious hotel I've ever been in in my life. So we didn't do too much today, we all met each other and our room mates. Its been fun. Everyone has a 'buddy' basically. And, of course, the food is AMAZING. Tomorrow we've got more stuff to do, although I dont' know what..

Till then,
Kourtney