A few days ago, I took the GO train from Kitchener to Union Station for work. Now, “work” sounds important, but let’s be honest—it was just papers, lines, and wondering why offices still feel like they’re stuck in the past.

I found a window seat, settled in, and prepared for a quiet ride.

Then, a woman sat next to me.

She looked like she was in her mid-40s—one of those people who always seems happy, like she’s just naturally good at talking to people. She had that friendly, small-town energy—no rush, no stress, just the kind of patience you only get from living in a place where nothing is urgent.

I have a habit. When I’m stuck with strangers on trains or planes, I ask questions. Most people talk, some don’t, but every now and then, you get a story that’s worth remembering.

So, I asked my first question.

“How are you?”

She smiled, like she actually wanted to talk. That’s always a good sign.

“Good! I just finished a conference in Waterloo and now I’m heading to Union Station.”

That got me curious. She was a teacher from Kenora, Ontario—a place I’d heard of but never really thought about. She told me it was mostly lakes, more water than land, a town where people fish all summer and just… survive the winter.

I asked how she was handling the weather here.

She sighed. “It’s funny. I got here a few days ago, and I was freezing. Everyone else is walking around like spring is coming, and I’m over here thinking, where’s my winter coat?”

That made me laugh. Her town was near Winnipeg, where people laugh at -40°C like it’s nothing. But apparently, cold feels different when you’re not expecting it.

Then she told me something I wasn’t ready for.

Once, she was trapped inside her basement apartment because snow completely covered her door.

She had to call her landlord to dig her out.

And in one April—April!—they got 40 cm of snow. That’s the month when normal places see flowers.

I suddenly felt like I was living in luxury with our four months of summer.

Then we talked about driving. I asked if she had driven to Waterloo.

She shook her head like I had just suggested swimming across Lake Superior.

“Drive? To Toronto? No way.”

It’s a 21-hour drive from Kenora to Toronto, through icy roads, empty highways, and moose and bears casually crossing like they own the place.

She said a friend of hers once hit a moose. Totaled the car.

The moose?

Walked away.

She always flies. Smart choice.

Then she said something I didn’t see coming.

“Have you ever heard of Churchill, Manitoba?”

I shook my head.

She leaned in slightly, like she was about to let me in on a secret.

“Now that’s remote. It’s way up on Hudson Bay. And you can’t even drive there. No roads. You either take a 12-hour train from Thompson or you fly.”

That was already interesting.

Then she hit me with this:

Churchill is the ‘Polar Bear Capital of the World.’

Every fall, hundreds of polar bears pass through the town, waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze. The moment the ice is solid, they head out to hunt seals.

People in Churchill are so used to living alongside polar bears that they have special town rules.

Car doors are never locked.

I blinked. “Wait. You mean people just leave their cars… open?”

She nodded. “Yep. If you’re walking and see a polar bear coming, you need to jump into the nearest car and lock the doors. Fast.”

I let that sink in.

Here, we worry about leaving our cars unlocked because someone might steal them.

In Churchill, you leave your car unlocked so someone doesn’t get eaten.

And if a polar bear wanders into town too many times? They tranquilize it and send it to “polar bear jail”—an actual facility where they hold problem bears until they can safely release them back into the wild.

As if that wasn’t enough, Churchill is also one of the best places in the world to see the Northern Lights.

“The sky just explodes in colors,” she said. “It doesn’t look real.”

And in summer? You can see beluga whales in the Churchill River. Thousands of them gather, and they’re not shy. People go kayaking, and the whales sometimes follow the boats out of pure curiosity.

At this point, I was completely fascinated.

One train ride, and I had learned about snowed-in houses, moose-proof moose, polar bear jail, and unlocked car doors for emergency bear evasion.

Then we somehow landed on beer.

I mentioned that I used to make beer, and her face lit up.

“Oh! There’s a brewery in my town.”

Turns out, Kenora has a small but ambitious brewery that makes blueberry beer—because blueberries grow everywhere up there.

But they also make a very special beer.

Every year, they produce just 200 bottles of a beer that they freeze in the lake.

I had to stop her. “Hold on. They freeze beer… in a lake?”

She nodded.

“Yep. They put the barrels in the lake in November and take them out in May.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And that makes the beer… better?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But they sell each bottle for $80, and people buy them.”

That, my friends, is marketing genius.

Finally, we landed on ChatGPT.

She said she uses it, but as a teacher, she’s worried. Her students?

Copy-pasting assignments without understanding anything.

“They’re getting good at using AI, but they’re not getting better at thinking,” she said.

I nodded. That’s the world now. AI can write, summarize, maybe even do taxes soon. But real learning? That’s still on us.

By then, the train slowed into Union Station.

We exchanged a bye-bye, and I stepped onto the platform, my mind buzzing with thoughts of frozen beer, open car doors, and polar bears casually strolling through town.

Talking to strangers is strange.

Some conversations are just small talk.

But some?

Some leave you with stories about places you’ll never visit, lives you’ll never live, and ideas you never knew existed.

And sometimes, all it takes is a simple question.