Supply shipments resume for Churchill after railway washout
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/07/2019 (2461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OTTAWA — Winnipeg’s surface link to Nunavut is back in service, with the Town of Churchill sending its first shipment of southern Manitoba goods in two years.
This week, the MV Aujaq arrived in Churchill from Montreal. Instead of simply carrying goods to the polar bear capital, the heavy-cargo ship is picking up trucks, construction equipment and boats shipped on the Hudson Bay Railway from Winnipeg.
The railway washed out in May 2017, and only resumed light service in November 2018, after a long battle between Ottawa and Indigenous groups against former owner, Denver-based Omnitrax, which refused to repair its line.
The railway was started in the 1930s to transport grain to markets abroad, though global trends and climate change have made this more difficult. For decades, Winnipeg businesses exported goods along the line to western Nunavut, which stopped with the railway washout.
Winnipeg firms had decried their business flowing to Montreal, from which ships make a much longer journey to western Nunavut.
It appears that business is starting to trickle back to Manitoba.
A Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker is accompanying the ship as it leaves today, to remote communities such as Arviat, Rankin Inlet and Baker Lake.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Churchill Mayor Mike Spence wrote in a statement, “but today is a great day.”
Churchill’s port and railway are owned by Arctic Gateway, a consortium of Indigenous and local groups, backed by Toronto financier Fairfax and Saskatoon grain giant AGT Foods.
— Dylan Robertson