Sitting on the east bank of the Churchill River where it empties
into Hudson Bay, CHURCHILL has the neglected appearance of many of the
settlements of the far north, its unkempt open spaces dotted with the
houses of its mixed Inuit, Cree and white population. These grim
buildings are heavily fortified against the biting cold of winter and
the insects of the summer - ample justification for a local T-shirt
featuring a giant mosquito above the inscription "I gave blood in
Churchill". That said, the town has long attracted a rough-edged
assortment of people with a taste for the wilderness, and nowadays
tourists flock here for the wildlife, particularly the polar bears - a
lifeline, now that Churchill's grain-handling facilities are underused.
In 1682, the Hudson's Bay Company established a fur-trading post at York
Factory , a marshy peninsula some 240km southeast of today's Churchill .
The move was dictated by the fact that the direct sea route here from
England was roughly 1500km shorter than the old route via the St
Lawrence River, while the Hayes and Nelson rivers gave access to the
region's greatest waterways. Within a few years, a regular cycle of
trade had been established, with the company's Cree and Assiniboine go-betweens
heading south in the autumn to hunt and trade for skins, and returning
in the spring laden with pelts they could exchange for the company's
manufactured goods. Throughout the eighteenth century, before the
English assumed control of all facets of the trade and laid off their
native intermediaries, both sides seem to have benefited economically,
and the reports of the company's traders are sprinkled with bursts of
irritation at the bargains forced on them by the natives. The company
was always keen to increase its trade, and it soon expanded its
operations to Churchill, building the first of a series of forts here in
1717.
In the nineteenth century the development of faster trade routes through
Minneapolis brought decline, and by the 1870s both York Factory and
Churchill had become remote and unimportant. Then the development of
agriculture on the prairies brought a reprieve. Many of the politicians
and grain farmers of this new west were determined to break the trading
monopoly of Sault Ste Marie in northern Ontario and campaigned for the
construction of a new port facility on Hudson Bay, connected by rail to
the south through Winnipeg. In the 1920s the Canadian National Railway
agreed to build the line, and it finally reached Churchill in April
1929. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the railway workers in
the teeth of the ferocious climate, the port has never been very
successful, largely because the bay is ice-free for only about three
months a year
The town centre
On the northern side of town, the unprepossessing Bayport Plaza is a
good place to start a visit, as it incorporates the Parks Canada Visitor
Reception Centre (June-Nov daily 1-5pm & 6-9pm; Dec-May Mon-Fri
8am-4.30pm; |
