Northern accommodations Blueberry Inn adds 16 new, much-needed rooms to Churchill offerings amid increasingly busy tour seasons By: Gabrielle Piché Posted: 6:08 PM CST Friday, Jan. 17, 2025

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This article was published 17/01/2025 (578 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Too many times, there was no room at the inn, hotel or bed and breakfast during Churchill’s busy polar bear viewing season.

Tour operator Churchill Wild faced nights where flights were cancelled due to weather and its customers were stranded in the northern Manitoba town without lodgings. Staff called friends and family, stressed, seeking shelter for tour guests in neighbourhood homes.

Those rare nights are ending, company leadership hopes, as Churchill Wild recently unveiled the Blueberry Inn, a 9,000-square-foot lodge fitted with 16 suites.

“(We’ll) automatically have accommodations,” said Jackie Storry, Churchill Wild vice-president of business development.

Others will, too, as Churchill tourism operators look ahead to increasingly busy winters packed with northern lights enthusiasts.

Churchill Wild hit a record high for customers last year: 754 people travelled to its remote lodges, ready for hikes with views of polar bears and boat rides to see beluga whales.

Storry believes this year’s customer count will exceed 2024’s. Revenue will likely beat what Churchill Wild counted before the COVID-19 pandemic, she added.

“I think that there’s going to be a greater demand for tourism in Churchill overall,” Storry predicted.

She pointed to a post-COVID-19 pandemic boom in travel, heightened restrictions internationally regarding distance from wildlife and a Canada-wide push to promote its northern lights locations.

Expedia named Churchill the second-highest trending northern lights locale, globally, in 2024.

“We’re seeing good national and international spend coming into Manitoba,” Storry relayed. “You want people to come to Churchill and leave with a very positive experience.”

That likely wasn’t the case when customers’ flights had been cancelled and they ended up sleeping in a stranger’s home, Storry noted.

The Blueberry Inn’s 16 rooms — including a caretaker’s suite that can be used for guests, if needed — will cover Churchill Wild’s typical tour capacity. The lodge will operate during its bear and beluga tours season: July through November.

The inn will also book visitors in February and March, an increasingly busy time for local northern lights tours operators. (Churchill Wild doesn’t run aurora borealis excursions.)

Travel Manitoba has partnered with Destination Canada and launched its own campaigns to draw international visitors for Churchill’s northern lights viewing. The activity has “really taken off,” said Linda Whitfield, the Crown corporation’s vice-president of communications and stakeholder engagement.

Travel Manitoba will continue advertising the northern lights as a reason to visit Churchill, Whitfield said, noting there’s belief within the industry the sector can grow.

Meantime, there’s a need for “unique, smaller-scale” accommodations in the northern town, some 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg, Whitfield said.

“Something like the Blueberry Inn, it’s a perfect fit,” she continued. “It meets the character of Churchill.”

Heavy timber decorates the lodge; continental breakfasts with cold cut meats, hard-boiled eggs and fruit are served in the morning.

More Churchill hotel rooms have been lost than gained in recent history.

The Northern Nights Hotel burned down in 2011; its 25 rooms were not replaced, said John Gunter, chairman of the Tourism Industry Association of Manitoba and president of Frontiers North Adventures, a Churchill tour enterprise.

Projects like inns are difficult to finance in Churchill because the town’s tourism sector is seasonal, Gunter added.

“It’s great to see that investment being made in Churchill,” he said of the Blueberry Inn. “It takes a strong business case, strong balance sheet and dedication to community to make investments like this.”

Churchill Wild declined to share the cost to build the inn.

Gunter is among the operators hoping his clients will book rooms at the new site. Frontiers North runs activities with Churchill Wild.

Churchill Wild’s customers take priority for inn space. External booking is being worked out; Churchill Wild plans to have a website launched by the end of the month, organizers said.

The new build addresses feedback Gunter has heard: there’s “room to improve” the quality and currency of local hotel accommodations.

“It takes a strong business case, strong balance sheet and dedication to community to make investments like this.”–John Gunter

Churchill visitors spent $10 million on accommodations in 2023, according to a Probe Research study commissioned by Travel Manitoba. A total 25,800 visitors spent an estimated $88 million in Churchill. The town contributed approximately $99.8 million to Manitoba’s GDP.

Americans, Australians and Europeans fly to Churchill Wild’s remote lodges. Asian countries are increasingly represented, said Storry, who’s on TIAM’s board.

“The study really pointed out to us just how important Churchill is as a tourism destination for Manitoba,” Whitfield stated. “It really is an important sector and also a growing sector.”

Calm Air crews were among the first to stay in the Blueberry Inn when it opened in October. Gary Bell, the airline’s chief executive, called the site a “world-class facility.”

A Blueberry Inn room rental will cost around $350 per night in all operational months except October and November, when the rate will increase to $500 per night for polar bear viewing season, Storry said.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com