By Isla Quinn
Cold air. Grey water. A small town with a very long railway behind it. Churchill sits on the west shore of Hudson Bay, at the mouth of the Churchill River in northern Manitoba, and every autumn it fills with people who have come to watch the bears wait for the ice.
How small it is
Wikipedia and the Canadian Encyclopedia both give the 2021 census count as 870 residents, down from 899 in 2016. The encyclopedia adds that the population once peaked at about 4,000, before the military base closed in the 1960s. That is a big drop for a place this far north, and you can feel the space it left. Wikipedia puts the land area at 50.83 square kilometres.
Getting there
The Canadian Encyclopedia says the town is reachable only by air or rail. Wikipedia describes the Hudson Bay Railway as running to The Pas, where it joins the Canadian National network, and says the Winnipeg to Churchill train covers about 1,700 km and takes roughly 40 hours. Travel Manitoba, the provincial tourism board, gives the same trip as about 48 hours on Via Rail, and says a flight from Winnipeg takes about two hours. The 40 and the 48 are two sources talking about the same route, and we have not worked out why they differ. Check the current timetable with the carrier before you plan anything.
Wikipedia says railway construction was completed in 1929 and that grain has gone out through the port ever since. The encyclopedia gives 1929 as the year the railway’s Churchill terminal opened, and says the town began to grow then.
The bears
Wikipedia calls Churchill the “Polar Bear Capital of the World” and says the peak tourist period is October and November, when the bears move toward the shore. Travel Manitoba calls mid-October to mid-November the ideal time to visit. A separate website, run by a group that follows the bears of the area, says they gather along the shoreline while they wait for the bay to freeze. Once it does, they move out onto the ice to hunt seals, whose fat restores what the bears have burned through. Travel Manitoba adds that polar bears do not hibernate.
Forts and a port
The two sources tell the early story differently. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the Hudson’s Bay Company built Fort Churchill in 1689, about 8 km from the river mouth. Wikipedia says the company’s Churchill River Post of 1717 was its first permanent settlement there. Both go on to describe the fort that came later. Wikipedia dates Prince of Wales Fort to 1731 to 1741 and says it is now a heritage site maintained by Parks Canada. The encyclopedia says the fort was partly reconstructed and designated a national historic site in 1920. It records that the French took it in 1782, and we leave the account of that event there.
On the port, Wikipedia says sea ice restricts navigation from mid-autumn to mid-summer. The encyclopedia says Churchill is about 1,600 km closer to Europe by sea than Montreal, but that a four-month shipping season and shallow water limit its growth as an ocean port.
Dates in order
- 1689: Fort Churchill built, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
- 1717: Churchill River Post, the company’s first permanent settlement there, according to Wikipedia.
- 1731 to 1741: Prince of Wales Fort built, according to Wikipedia.
- 1920: the fort named a national historic site, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
- 1929: the railway reaches Churchill, according to both sources.
- 1942: a United States Army Air Forces base is set up, according to Wikipedia.
- 1956 to 1984: the rocket research range operates, according to Wikipedia.
- 1997: the town is incorporated, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
- 2018: freight and passenger rail resume after the 2017 flood damage, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
The Canadian Encyclopedia and Travel Manitoba agree on the shape of the season: bears on the shore in autumn, waiting for ice.
What to ask before you go
Ask the carrier how long the trip takes this year. Ask any tour operator how its vehicles work and where the bears are expected. Ask where any handmade thing came from and who made it. Sephari has not profiled makers in Churchill, and we name none here.
Roam first. Shop later.