The northern Manitoba town of Churchill, known for its polar bears and northern tundra, is the inspiration behind a $25 million US northern-themed exhibit opening next year in a Kentucky zoo.

Next summer, the Louisville Zoo will open Glacier Run, an exhibit that will house the zoo's polar bears, seals, and other animals.

It will also feature a splash park and a "mining town" modelled on Churchill that will feature a school house, general store and climatology laboratory.

"Our town of Churchill is actually on the south side of our exhibit, and the edge of the tundra is to the north," zoo director John Walczak said Tuesday.

"We are creating a polar bear transfer system that will allow the bears to mysteriously appear in the city from time to time."

Walczak said he spent several days in Churchill last month, learning about how climate change is affecting polar bears there.

He called the town "such a wonderful metaphor for the entire planet," since residents have learned to coexist with polar bears, a top-of-the-food-chain predator, "in an incredibly positive way," he said.

"We can use that example to talk about polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba in the Arctic, but we can also use that same metaphor for how we coexist with black bears in Kentucky," Walczak said.

"We just want to help people with information so that they can make very good decisions about how we are good stewards of the planet, and that what we do here in Louisville, Kentucky, how that affects polar bears thousands of miles away in Churchill, Manitoba."

The zoo's Churchill-style exhibit was named Glacier Run so it would not confuse locals who are familiar with the name Churchill Downs, the site of the Kentucky Derby.