Churchill port open July to November on Hudson's Bay

Churchill Visitors Bureau

 

The Port of Churchill is situated on the western shore of Hudson's Bay, in Northern Manitoba. It is open four months of the year from July until November, says Bill Drew, Executive Director of the Churchill Gateway Development Corporation, who noted that the 2009 shipping season is shaping up to be a good one. Making the tonnage grow at the port has always been a challenge, however, the port is constantly working to attract interest from world shipping circles. The distances between continents are shorter at the top of the world but the opportunity to sail these shorter distances between Northern Europe and Russia and Canada is restricted by Arctic ice.

"Churchill Gateway Development Corporation (CGDC) was established in June 2003 for the purpose of marketing the Port of Churchill through diversifying the traffic base and building two-way traffic," says the website. Drew says, "OmniTrax Inc. headquartered in Denver, CO operates the port facilities and the railroad from Churchill to The Pas." Drew is pleased to note that 75 percent of the people who work for the Port of Churchill and Hudson's Bay Railway Company are local and Aboriginal.

There are a wide array of jobs available at the port as well as in the town of Churchill (www.portofchurchill.ca) and on the rail line that transfers cargo along a southeastern span 800 kilometres, from the centre of the western coast of Hudson's Bay to The Pas, Manitoba. From there cargo moves to points in Canada, USA, and Mexico. The port was developed in 1928 after a long mercantile and industrial age history that began in 1686 as a Hudson's Bay Company fort when a semi-permanent post was established a few kilometres from the mouth of the Churchill River.

By 1717 HBC men in York Factory and present day Churchill were actively trading furs sought from Rupert's Land and there was a whaling industry working to serve the British Empire with lamp oil and medicinal unguents. HBC eventually constructed a formidable fort called Prince of Wales Fort to defend their interests against French warships and this stands today as a national historic site in Churchill.  Today vessels come to Churchill from July to November via Hudson Strait passing Iceland and Greenland and Baffin Island to pick up grain as well as bring fertilizer from Russia. One recent operation in cargo saw fertilizer coming from Estonia.

On average, the port exports 500,000 tonnes of grain per year. People who live and work in this distant Arctic home come from the town or other communities in Nunavut and Manitoba's vast north. Drew says, "People really enjoy living here,'" which doesn't surprise Drew because most of the people are locals from Dene, Cree and Inuit heritage, "It's a bit of a melting pot of northern cultures." The mayor of the town Mike Spence is Aboriginal and Mike sits on the Board of Directors of the Port Of Churchill Gateway Corporation.

Drew says the Aboriginal component has been integral to the development of the Port of Churchill, "The port is unionized with members of the grain handlers union, PSAC, and ILWU locals. We have a Canadian Customs office and the employees rotate on a monthly basis when the port is operational."  The sailing season of today, says Drew, may change in years to come with the onset of later seasons and early break-ups of ice on the Hudson's Bay. That change is yet to come, and nor is it a desirable occurrence, he says. The town has another distinction, "the situation with polar bears," is pretty straight forward, "there's a lot of Them."