Martha Stewart — and bears — oh my!

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This article was published 07/11/2010 (5760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Homemaker extraordinaire Martha Stewart is warming things up in Churchill.

The domestic mogul landed Friday to see the polar bears.

“The buzz is around town,” said Churchill Mayor Mike Spence. “People respect who Martha is and what she’s done and the profile she brings to Churchill.”

A popular stop for Stewart is Gypsy Bakery, in part because it has the only espresso machine in town. Stewart apparently needs her cappuccino.

“It was so exciting,” said Helen Da Silva, who owns the bakery with husband, Tony.

“I knew she was in town. We are making her buggy lunches. But we didn’t know she was coming this morning. She came in and said, ‘What’s for breakfast?’ ” said Da Silva.

Stewart had eggs and bacon and cappuccino. She was also interested in Da Silva’s pastries, including her wedding cakes, and took photos and posted one on her Twitter account.

“She bought our famous apple fritters, some jam busters and glazed doughnuts,” said Da Silva. With Stewart was four staff, and three people from the tundra buggy company.

“I told her I loved seeing her show. I saw the one with Oprah about a month ago” when Stewart hosted the popular daytime talk show hostess at her home.

“She’s a very nice, very calm, very friendly lady. We’re happy because she puts the name of Churchill on the map,” said Tony Da Silva.

He said Stewart took a call from a friend in New York at their restaurant. The friend wanted to know how Stewart was surviving the frigid North. But the weather has been beautiful — too beautiful. Temperatures have been reaching 2 Celsius and melting the ice. “The polar bears are going, ‘Where’s the snow and cold and wind?'” said Tricia Scher, with Frontier North Adventures, which is supplying the tundra buggy for Stewart.

Stewart arrived Friday and leaves today. There was some added excitement her first day. A polar bear was in the town’s bear jail. The charge was making a nuisance of itself in town. It was tranquilized and airlifted out onto the tundra.

Stewart posted a photo of herself, with a fur-trim hat, standing in front of the bear jail, which is a large Quonset building. She also posted photos of the bear being raised by helicopter.

“Bear in net about to be airlifted back to the wild,” she twittered. Over two million people follow Stewart on Twitter at http://twitter.com/marthastewart.

Stewart heads a business empire called Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. It includes her television show, The Martha Stewart Show, Martha Stewart Living magazine, and many product lines from crafts to kitchen countertops to pet items. Recently published third-quarter revenues for Omnimedia were $50 million.

Stewart was scheduled to attend a reception Saturday night hosted by Polar Bears International, a foundation that educates and researches for the protection of polar bears.

The foundation is heavily involved in Stewart’s visit but it is not certain to what extent. Staff could not be reached for an explanation on Saturday.

Invitees included Spence, Churchill’s mayor of the past 16 years who was re-elected last week.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca