Going Wireless in the Wilderness

Wi-Fi networks, fairly common in North America’s urban centers, have extended their habitat far into Canada’s frozen north.

By Charles Mandel Wired.com

There, local tourism operator Tundra Buggy Tours is setting up a four-kilometer-radius wireless network that will let people watch the famed polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba, over the Internet.

Tundra Buggy Tours’ new Wi-Fi network will allow the company to capitalize on the success of its Polar Bear Cam, letting the cam roam to where the action is taking place.More and more Tundra Buggy tourists tote laptops and digital cameras. A new Wi-Fi network will take advantage of that technology, letting the eco-tourists upload their images of polar bears onto the company’s website.Previously, the Polar Bear Cam was attached to the Tundra Buggy Lodge, a train-like series of cars that are towed out to the tundra and left in place for a week or more. Typically, well-heeled tourists pay anywhere from $4,500 to $4,900 to sit inside the lodge and wait for the bears to approach.

Approximately 10,000 tourists descend each year on Churchill, Manitoba, an isolated Canadian outpost with a population approaching 1,000. The visitors turn Churchill into a boomtown as they flood onto the tundra to watch massive polar bears wrestle and play.A new Wi-Fi network will play an important role in education and research surrounding polar bears. Internet question-and-answer sessions will take place with students in programs at zoos in Chicago, Baltimore and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Of the dozens of tour operators plying the frigid northern barrens, Tundra Buggy Tours is the oldest, having taken tourists out for the past 24 years.

Three years ago, the company added a Polar Bear Cam, a feature that proved surprisingly popular. In fact, according to Tundra Buggy spokesman John Gunter, last year about 500 people paid $25 each to have a subscription to the cam.

Previously, the cam was attached to the Tundra Buggy Lodge, a train-like series of cars that are towed out to the tundra and left in place for a week or more. Typically, well-heeled tourists pay anywhere from $4,500 to $4,900 to sit inside the lodge and wait for the bears to approach.

Tundra’s new Wi-Fi network will allow the company to capitalize on the success of the cam, letting it roam to where the action is taking place.

Alberta’s Pathcom Wireless is providing the Wi-Fi infrastructure, including image capture, encoding, wireless network and satellite Internet connection. Gunter said Pathcom, a company experienced with setting up wireless networks for oil companies, has reassured them the cold won’t affect the network.

The network also will play an important role in both education and research surrounding the bears. Tundra has partnered with Polar Bears International, a nonprofit conservation organization devoted to the animals and situated in the unlikely location of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Robert Buchanan, president of Polar Bears International, dryly explained: "I kid around and say that during the last Ice Age polar bears did roam in that area."

As it turns out, the woman who handles the organization’s administrative operations lives in Baton Rouge, so to keep costs down the nonprofit decided to make its headquarters in the southern state.

Polar Bears International not only looks after the Wi-Fi video streaming and image serving, but is leading both distance-education and research initiatives. The nonprofit is sending Florida’s Jane Waterman, a well-known bear expert who has spent several years studying the mammals, to Churchill, where she’ll research the impact of eco-tourism on the animals.

The roaming cam will follow Waterman as she carries out her research. "We’re a very transparent organization,” Buchanan said. "Very clean and aboveboard, so we’re going to let everyone watch and see what the researchers are doing."

In earlier research, Waterman noted that large modified vehicles now carry tourists to areas of the tundra where none had visited before. She speculates that the bears might behave differently around the tourist camps than they do in other areas.

The tourist areas are generally dominated by male bears, with females reluctant to approach because their cubs could be harmed by aggressive males. However, Waterman writes that the camps have begun to attract females, with potentially lethal consequences for the cubs.

Waterman also will engage in question-and-answer sessions with a number of students over the Internet, with kids in programs at zoos in Chicago, Baltimore and Winnipeg, Manitoba, participating.

"The idea is to hopefully stimulate young kids into taking up Arctic studies or at least take up being a scientist or biologist," Buchanan said. "We’ve all had one teacher or person who’s inspired us in life. We hope that Jane might be able to do some of that."

Gunter said Tundra Buggy Tours has noticed a trend over the past couple of years: More and more of their visitors tote laptops and digital cameras. The Wi-Fi network will take advantage of that technology, letting tourists upload their images of polar bears onto the company’s website.

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