Is it boom or bust for Port Churchill?
Friday, 24 September 2010 00:00
September 23, 1929. "It is interesting to note the difference in the views expressed regarding the population of Fort Churchill" [now just Churchill, Manitoba] says the Saint John Telegraph Journal.
The first passenger train had arrived over the new 810-mile railway from The Pas, where it connects with the CNR line. The first shipment of Saskatchewan grain delivered to Churchill had left on a steamer for Europe.
Estimates of what all this would mean for the future of the new town on the shores of Hudson Bay varied widely. Brigadier General R.W. Patterson, president of the "On to the Bay Association," predicts a population of 100,000 for the sub-Arctic town. Duncan W. McLaughlin, the engineer in charge of the Hudson Bay railway terminals, says the population won't exceed 2,000; of those, 500 will be there for only the three-month navigation season.
Estimated land values varied just as much. A court case involving expropriated property at Churchill, presumably for railway or port facilities, disclosed that the government had offered the property owners $11.60 per lot. The property owners asked for $300.
"In any case," said the Telegraph-Journal, "Fort Churchill is on the map, will soon have completed railway facilities and port terminals, and be in a position to demonstrate its value as a national port."
As it turned out, Churchill's population peaked at some 7,000, but with the withdrawal of military basis in the mid-1970s, that declined to about 1,000 in 2009. The town boasts that it is Canada's only inland port, and continues to be an important terminal for the shipment of Saskatchewan grain to Europe. The railway also serves mining and forestry industries in northern Manitoba, hauling copper and zinc concentrates, kraft paper and lumber.
For Canadian grain or other commodities, the shipping distance to European markets is much short via the Churchill route than from the head of the Great Lakes at Thunder Bay. Global warming looms as an impending global disaster, but if it extends the Arctic shipping season, it could be a winner for Churchill.