Wonders of a small town in Canada Private prisons are forbidden, and shopping after dark is not allowed to violate the rules
A town of only 900 people should build a prison and not allow people to wander the streets at night, something that only Canada can do. Even more interesting is the fact that the "criminals" are kept here year after year, without a single police officer.
This dates back to the 80s of the last century, when Canada adopted a new animal protection** that added it to the list of endangered species. The animal protection bill was unanimously passed, but the people near the town of Churchill in the Arctic region strongly ** that according to the law, no one was allowed to approach and no one was allowed to harm polar bears, until 1983, when the town once again had a situation of polar bears hurting people, the local people finally couldn't stand it anymore, so they established an independent prison to imprison these "criminals" as punishment.
Churchilltown sits on the western edge of Hudson Bay, with more than 1,400 kilometres of coastline and just over 2,000 kilometres from Greenland. Although the town has habitable woodland and tundra, temperatures of minus 26 degrees Celsius are daunting, and it is the nomadic Inuit tribes who survive here. In 1619, the first Danish expedition of 64 men reached Churchilltown, and only three survivors survived the winter.
Captain Munch, who had extensive experience in the Arctic, regretted encountering a group of polar bears migrating inland, wrote a journal entry before he died: "This is the territory of polar bears, and we should not fight for them." ”
According to survivors, the population is about 200 to 300 individuals. This statement was quickly met with skepticism due to the fact that polar bears are known for being "autistic" and often go deep into the North Pole alone.
In the early 18th century, the Dutch, already possessing a sizable "carriage of the sea", dismissed this practice and soon set up livestock fur factories in the area with munitions, which served as a defensive fortress, the Welsh Prince's fort, to avoid native attacks and French and British invasions.
In some ways, the construction of this fort opened a "man-bear war".
Coincidentally, this is the perfect route for polar bears, passing through it in both winter and summer. In the winter, when Hudson Bay freezes, herds of polar bears come from the jungles and meadows on land to hunt seals, seabirds and fish, and when the summer melts, they return to their original routes back into the woods.
As the Dutch made a lot of money, British, American, and French caravans and hunters established new settlements 25 kilometers from here, gradually forming the town of Churchill today. As seal populations in Hudson Bay continue to dwindle, thousands of polar bears have to travel to towns to feed, increasing the likelihood of being attacked by black bears.
Since the implementation of the "Animal Protection Law," the town, which originally had a population of more than 900, has plummeted to less than 100 people, because the bears not only come to make trouble at night, but also swagger through the streets, and some will spend the night in people's homes for several days. As a result, Canada granted permission to build a "White Bear" prison here, allowing local people to cooperate with local "human rights organizations", which is also the only place in the world that has no supervision.
Why don't you go to a bear shelter or almshouse, but a polar bear prison?"Criminal" bears are indeed detained, ranging from a week to two months at the shortest. Interestingly, the bears that were locked up were unlikely to commit crimes again, and most of them were afraid to leave the town, except for a white bear nicknamed "Flying Fish" who was locked up several times for smashing people's kitchen doors and stealing (fish and tomatoes).
The 28-cell "confinement" can be used as a punitive measure, and it also houses the world's largest polar bear research center. According to the staff, these bears are "arrested" because they have few "sins", because they rarely eat, so before the arrival of winter, they are brought back to nature by helicopter.
As of June 2019, there were only 22-31,000 polar bears, the main cause of their declining populations (Arctic Environmental Research).
However, the number of bears in Churchill has not become scarce because of the increase, and the number of polar bears on record has reached about 1,100, and these polar bears seem to be very familiar with the inhabitants of the area, only a few cubs will come out from time to time to cause trouble, but rarely hurt humans, so everyone is safe.
But the town of Churchill attracts a lot of tourists, and some people cross the quarantine zone to take pictures in the wilderness, and although there are some accidents every year, it doesn't stop people from loving it.
In desperation, Churchill Town had to increase the blockade, add more buses, and impose martial law on tourists, and after night, the small town of Canada became the "White Bear Capital", and Churchill's name gradually faded into view.