CELPIP Reading Part 3 Practice Test: The Polar Bears of Churchill, Manitoba

Paragraph A

Each autumn, the small town of Churchill, home to fewer than a thousand people, on the western shore of Hudson Bay in northern Manitoba, receives visitors who outnumber its residents. Some arrive from across the world; others simply wander in from the tundra. Churchill lies along a stretch of coast where polar bears gather while they wait for the bay to freeze, and this has earned the town the nickname “Polar Bear Capital of the World.” Because no highway reaches Churchill, travellers must arrive by train or by plane, which adds both cost and a sense of adventure to the trip.

Paragraph B

The bears’ movements are governed by sea ice. Polar bears feed mainly on seals, and they need a frozen platform from which to hunt them. When the ice on Hudson Bay melts in early summer, the bears are forced ashore, where they live largely off the fat they built up over the winter, eating very little for months. By October, many have gathered along the coast near Churchill, where the ice tends to form early, waiting for freeze-up. Researchers have found that the ice-free season on the bay has grown longer over recent decades, which means the bears must go longer without a proper meal.

Paragraph C

Sharing a town with such powerful animals requires careful planning. Provincial wildlife officers run the Polar Bear Alert Program, and residents can call its line at any hour to report a bear in town. Officers first try to scare bears away with loud noises; bears that keep coming back may be captured and kept in a holding facility, nicknamed the “polar bear jail,” before being released far from town, sometimes by helicopter. Signs around town remind visitors never to walk alone after dark or along the shoreline. Many residents leave their car doors unlocked during bear season so that anyone surprised on the street has somewhere to take shelter. On Halloween, officers and volunteers patrol the streets so that children can go trick-or-treating safely.

Paragraph D

The bears have also shaped Churchill’s economy. Every October and November, thousands of tourists climb aboard large tundra vehicles, built high off the ground on oversized tires, to watch the bears from a safe distance. Wildlife photographers and film crews are regular visitors, and local guides, hotels, and restaurants depend heavily on this short season. Most tourists stay only a few days, but a guided bear-watching trip can cost thousands of dollars per person, so even a short season brings in a great deal of money. Some residents worry that the town relies too much on a single attraction. If shrinking sea ice eventually means fewer bears, Churchill may have to lean more on its other draws, such as beluga whale watching in summer and the northern lights in winter.