(Originally published in TOURISM)
You may have seen Merv Gunter and his wife Lynda of Frontiers North Adventures at their post within the Manitoba section of Rendez-vous Canada, on numerous occasions in the past. The operators of Tundra Buggy Adventure have been providing intimate polar bear tours on the tundra near Churchill since 1979, and played a key role in developing an industry that has certainly become one of Canada’s iconic tourism products.
“In the early 1980s, I was working with the Royal Bank and came across a job opportunity in Churchill as a bank manager. My wife and I had always been interested in visiting places that are somewhat off the beaten track, and the bank asked us to come up. Initially we were to stay for two years, which soon turned into four. We thoroughly enjoyed our tenure up here in the north; I got to travel into what was then the Northwest Territories, which is now Kivaliiq (one of the regions of Nunavut) and the area north of Churchill.
“Meanwhile, a fellow by the name of Len Smith had been in the process of developing an industry around a machine with four big tires to go out on the tundra near Churchill, and get closer to polar bears. In my role as a bank manager, and in Lynda’s capacity at the medical centre, people we met from all over the world kept telling us how what we had in Churchill was kind of special. We believed that if we could bring people to Churchill and package the experiences – to the point where all guests had to ask was ‘how much is it going to cost me?’ – we could make it work. We started packaging in 1987; it was leading edge at the time!”
The initial product was staged from Winnipeg, Gunter says. Experiences in and around the Manitoba capital were offered, and then guests were sent to Churchill to see the polar bears. “So the little company we started (Frontiers North Adventures) did very well. I kept working for the bank (people have to eat!) Lynda and I would do marketing shows during my holidays and we ran the business from our little office at home.
“In 1996, it grew to the point where we moved to a small commercial office and Lynda had three people working with her. We were packaging tourism products of Churchill, the Northwest Territories and parts of Nunavut then. That led to an opportunity in 1999 with a partner who came as a friend said, "the Tundra Buggy business is for sale; we think it is a great opportunity. You have some strengths and background with this, and we would like to work with you.’ So I was looking to move into tourism as a career! It all came together; I left the bank in 1999 and we bought Tundra Buggy Tours, Ltd. with some investors.
“We jumped into the fray when things were very well in 1999. Of course, in 2000 anybody who was involved in the tourism industry knows that – in March, April, and May when the NASDAQ went south and tanked, and the Dow Jones with it – key clientele were affected. The writing was on the wall that things wouldn’t go as smoothly as they had until then. Since then, between 9/11 and SARS, the war in Iraq and the significant appreciation of the Canadian dollar, we have been fighting so many issues that the business model for partnership wasn’t feasible. With the support of our stakeholders, we did a very nice and friendly removal of the partners, and we have been running Frontiers North Adventures and The Tundra Buggy Adventure, with the support of our stakeholders, ever since."
Gunter says the Tundra Buggy operation now accounts for 98 percent of revenues. It is obviously a key part of activities that include stays at The Tundra Buggy Lodge. “It is made up of individual units on big wheels, like the wagons of a train almost. There are two sleeping units with berth‑type accommodations, bathroom and shower facilities, and shared accommodation like on an old‑fashioned train. There is a lounge car where people can come in and socialize in the evening, and make presentations at night. We have a digital camera and computers for people to download their digital material, and our well structured lounge makes the installations a unique social experience.”
The set‑up is complete with a dining car equipped with a kitchen where meals are prepared: “Nice hot breakfasts are prepared bright and early and lunches are packed for people to go on the tundra buggies to see the bears, and we do a full‑course meal at night.
We have a trailer with an energy efficient diesel generator and a propane backup, so there is no question that people on the tundra, on the shore of Hudson Bay in the middle of nowhere, are not going to have electrical power to keep them warm and comfortable and safe. All our tundra buggies are built so they can back up to that lodge and put the people through without them getting on the ground, so there is no risk of exposure to the bears.
"Picture Churchill, a town with a population of about 800 people, and without road access," explains Gunter. “Visitors must either come by rail or by air. The nearest community is hundreds of miles away. And then you go one step further and take 30 to 40 people onto the tundra and put them in a mobile infrastructure located in an isolated world, in an environment than can be harsh at best, and extremely hazardous at its worst."
Gunter emphasizes the safety consideration, and it is likely one of the reasons why the business is as successful as it is: “Hudson Bay Helicopters has a fleet of helicopters here throughout the entire season and will always keep a helicopter in Churchill. So if we are at the farthest point (Cape Churchill, out about a twenty‑minute helicopter ride or a four‑hour tundra buggy ride) we always have a mechanism to take care of any emergency we might have.
“We have been marketing to Britain and Germany for two decades. We are in Australia, and we have always marketed in the US. I guess our niche is that nobody else does what we do, with the species we do it with, in a world where the interaction with the species is – according to a prominent scientist – ‘the most interesting and positive interaction between man and wildlife there is.’ We seem to have a symbiotic relationship, the polar bears and our operation; we seem to get along. I have sat in the tundra buggy and looked through the window and watched a mom nursing her two cubs against the one of our wheels. We are not a threat. We are not something unknown to them or something that scares them. There is no trepidation, fear or concern. We are just part of the world out there. It is really a wonderful thing.”
And it all takes place within a 6 to 7 week season. “My personal estimate is from 6,000 to 8,000 people a year. The majority of them will be on the tundra to look at polar bears for at least one day. We always recommend two days, so if the bears are not moving one day because it is windy, they have the next day. We have 12 units that can go out into this large area on the tundra to watch polar bears, and there is another company in town that has 6. We will never lobby for more permits to put more units out there. Notwithstanding the value to the business of having increased volume, it is not the right model for this infrastructure; it is already at the right level. We are saying don’t allow any more out there, and Conservation Manitoba is delighted with that attitude.”
Through their efforts and that of stakeholders, the Gunters believe they have developed a viable business model that will stand the test of market fluctuations and time. “In terms of the environmental impact, we feel we are having very little and the scientists don’t see us having a negative impact on that world. So as long as climate doesn’t change, we will continue to offer this product. We will be there and we will be satisfied to be there at the number of buggies we have out there and our lodge.
"We have other designs to go to Canada’s north. We are doing a product next year for the first time just at the south shore of the Northwest Passage, south of Cambridge Bay. It is a beautiful Inuit lodge with a wonderful product, and we have ideas to develop different things in the north with suppliers out there. Our intent is to try to work primarily with interesting wildlife and sometimes with culture‑based products, tying in Canada’s First Nations people when the fit is there.”
Gunter sees Canada as well‑positioned internationally with some of the greatest natural resource‑based opportunities anywhere. “The connection is direct here. Most people in our world are embroiled in huge numbers, large commercialization, a frantic pace of life. If you come to Canada’s north and go to Churchill and Baker Lake, you will clearly fly over thousands of square miles of empty space. When you get to the ground, you have a good chance of touching a piece of the earth that has never been touched by man before. As the world grows and changes, it becomes more difficult for people to find this, and we can deliver it, while continuing to follow basic principles of solid ecotourism.”
Merv Gunter’s fears have more to do with preventing his industry from being a victim of its own success. “Don’t spoil what is there. Breathe it and then go home. Tour operators can deliver on that and most of us who operate in this world out here believe it is the best business principle we can invoke. I fear government bureaucracy, primarily through overly extensive provincial and national park development. A balance must be established where the foot print is small. We have that already is place.”
Merv Gunter feels he and those who have created the polar bear viewing industry have been worthy of the responsibilities they inherited when they first stepped into the tundra. The fact Frontiers North’s Tundra Buggy Adventure was a nominee for TIAC's 2006 Parks Canada Sustainable Tourism Award seems to confirm they are on the right track.
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