VANCOUVER, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Olympic flame launched its historic first trip through the Canadian Arctic on the shores of Hudson Bay with a polar bear on Sunday.

    The Olympic torch run across Canada stopped briefly to let the bear pass while en route from the airport to the polar bear capital of Churchill, in the northeastern province of Manitoba.

    The relay is the longest in Olympic Games history and day 10 --Sunday -- was the nearest the torch ever got to the North Pole.

    It later headed further north to a remote outpost on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island, coming for the first time within 900 kilometers of the North Pole.

    The 45,000-kilometer torch relay will see the flame carried across Canada by water, land and air before it arrives in Vancouver.