The Churchill bears spend the winter months hunting for seals out on the sea ice in Hudson Bay. They come ashore in June during the ice break-up and unique amongst Polar Bears, most excavate dens in the soft, peaty earth and see out the summer in semi-hibernation, slowing their metabolism and going without food for 5 months or more. In October and November however they emerge from their dens and congregate in large numbers near the shoreline, waiting for the first sea ice to form so they can again venture offshore in search of prey, and visitors have been flocking to this frontier town since the 1970s to witness the largest gathering of Polar Bears anywhere in the world.