4. Reading. Task 2. The town that polar bears built

 

     Churchill is a town in northern Manitoba, Canada, on the west shore of Hudson Bay. (0) It might be just another dot on the map if not for its seasonal residents of the four-legged variety. But like clockwork every autumn, hundreds of polar bears move through town. They are on their way to the freezing bay. (1) . The animals have been associated with Churchill since at least 1619.
     Over the years, the animals’ presence has earned the town the name of “Polar Bear Capital of the World.” The Smithsonian Channel has a series called “Polar Bear Town.” Independent bear guides Dennis Compayre and Kelsey Eliasson take viewers on a journey to meet the marine mammals that call the area home.
     Compayre is a native of Churchill. He has been taking photographers and filmmakers to see his bears for more than three decades and has become known as ‘the bear man’. (2) . In fact, as a boy, polar bears absolutely scared him. “There was always a polar bear in the back of your mind somewhere. We played ball. We did everything else that other kids did. (3) ”, Compayre tells Smithsonian.com.
     Today, Churchill’s bear population is bigger than its human population, which is just 813. When Compayre was growing up, the town was 7,000-people strong. (4) . It eventually closed in 1980. Back then, there was no such thing as an organized tour group to see the bears. “The only tourists we got came up in the summertime, they were bird watchers. And then we had the people come up to see the whales and the historic sites – but the bear tours, there was never a bear tour to speak of before Len,” says Compayre.
     Len Smith is a local mechanic, who built the first small car to see the bears in 1979. (5) . He had approached Smith to devise a form of transportation that would allow him to take groups safely out to Cape Churchill to see the bears. Smith’s solution was “Buggy I.” When it was finished, Compayre was asked to drive it. At the time, Compayre was still scared of bears. (6) .
     (7) . “The bears were a bit nervous about us; they had never seen us before. It was new ground for both of us, but it developed after that,” he says. Now on his tour, people can expect to see 20 or even 30 polar bears. But things were a bit more difficult in the early days.
     (8) . Luckily, the growing bear tourism industry helped. “Without the polar bear business we would have been in deep trouble. The business of bears started, and it slowly grew year by year,” says Compayre. “After the fifth or sixth year we thought we had run out of people who wanted to see bears, but that was absolutely wrong.”
     (9) . However, the reasons they come are different than when Compayre first started. “Years back, people came to Churchill full of excitement with wonder and joy to see these bears,” he says. Now things have changed, because the word is around that this Western Hudson Bay population of bears, Churchill Bears, are going to be the first population of polar bears to become extinct. (10) . Unfortunately, that is becoming part of the whole promotional aspect of the tours as well. ‘Come and see the bears before it’s too late.’

 

A - But his relationship with the animals was not always so close

 

B - When the business first started, visitors on the tour would be lucky if they saw 10 bears, at the most

 

C - So, now when the tourists come up, they all have a little bit of a lump in their throats because they are looking at a beautiful bear, but they are also looking at a doomed bear

 

D - But there was always the spectre of the polar bear around the next corner, around the next house

 

E - It was at the request of Dan Gervitz, a local businessman

 

F - However, he agreed to serve as both driver and guide

 

G - There they hunt for seals after the ice packs enough to support their weight

 

H - After Fort Churchill shut down, the town was at risk of a financial crisis

 

 

J - Most of its residents were associated in one way or another with the joint Canada-United States military fort that was located five miles east of the town

 

K - He has always been attracted to bears

 

L - Today, some 10,000 tourists arrive to the town for six weeks in autumn to see them every year