Churchill, Manitoba, is dealing with a public safety issue as dozens of hungry polar bears gather at an open landfill following a fire that destroyed the town’s waste storage facility. In April 2024, the town’s only indoor garbage warehouse burned to the ground. Because the ground in the region stays frozen from October until June, workers cannot bury trash, forcing the community to use an open dump on the tundra.
Up to 30 bears have been filmed searching through the garbage at the site, which is located about six kilometres away from the old facility. According to Polar Bears International, an ice storm in late 2024 even knocked out the power to an electric fence meant to keep the animals away. Without power, the bears were able to tear through the fence to eat the trash while workers were still trying to dump garbage.
Once bears start eating human food, they become much harder for officers to manage and are more likely to return to town. This situation is a significant setback for the community, which specifically closed its old open-air dump in 2005 to stop bears from gathering there. The current situation makes the work of local safety officers much more difficult and dangerous as they try to keep the animals away from residents.
The problem is growing as climate changes keep the animals on land for longer periods. In 2025, Hudson Bay had its second-longest ice-free period on record at 172 days. This means bears are stuck on shore for over a month longer than they were in the 1980s, leaving them without their natural food sources for nearly half the year and pushing them to search for other options like garbage.
Mayor Mike Spence is looking for approximately $11 million to build a new system that can burn and compost waste to solve the issue. While Churchill only has about 900 permanent residents, the town hosts up to 25,000 tourists every year. This high number of visitors creates more garbage than the small community can currently manage safely without a proper indoor facility.
