Leaders in Churchill shrug off talk of possible competing Hudson Bay port

Community leaders in Churchill are shrugging off the Progressive Conservative government'sinterest in finding out whether some other location along the coast of Hudson Bay would serve Manitoba better in the coming decades as a port.

On Aug. 4 the final day before the start of a pre-election blackout on government spendingannouncements the PC governmentsaid Manitoba will contribute $6.7 million to help study the feasibility ofbuildinga new rail line or pipeline across the northern reaches of the province to service a new port on Hudson Bay, separate from the existing Port of Churchill.

Thatproposed corridor, known as NeeStaNan, could be used to ship bitumen, liquefied natural gas, potash and other commodities through the Arctic Ocean, thegovernment said in a press release.

Manitoba Infrastructure Minister Doyle Piwniuksaid it's not clear thePort of Churchill is the best place to ship goods into Hudson Bay "forthe next 50 to 100 years" and suggested it's worth looking at another location.

The announcementis confusing, said Mike Spence, who serves as the mayor of Churchill as well as the chair of the board for the Arctic Gateway Group, a coalition of northern and Indigenous communities that effectivelyowns the Hudson Bay Railway andthe Port of Churchill.

On Aug. 3, 2022, Manitoba pledged to contribute $73 million toward upgrades to the Hudson Bay Railway, along with $60 million worth of federal help to ensure the the railway andPort of Churchill succeed as an international shipping route.

One year and one daylater, Piwniuk said Churchill could serve in the future as a regional as opposed to international port.

"We do have trains going through there. We have a lot of supplies that go up to the north to Churchill andthat can still be a distribution centre," Piwniuk said in an interview on Aug. 4.

"This is an opportunity to look at other natural resources that can cometo Hudson Bay andthis feasibility study is going to be, 'Where is the best place to locate this possible port?'"

Port Nelson possibilities

A video on the NeeStaNan website placesthe new port at Port Nelson, on the north side of the Nelson River estuary. Port Nelson wasthe original intended terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway before that locationwas abandoned in 1918 due to heavy silting on the fast-flowing Nelson as well as labour challenges during the First World War.

The railway was eventually rerouted to Churchill, where the port openedin 1931.Spence saidhe wasn't pleased by the provincial interest in replacing it.

"Naturally it's disappointing to hear. Weweren't happy about that statement," Spence said last week in an interview at Churchill's Seaport Hotel, a business he owns.

Arctic Gateway, he said, is making progress at the precise task the province wants to consider doing elsewhere.

"We're open for business and we'll succeed at it. I don't have time to worry about projects like Port Nelson. I mean,it didn't work in the beginning and it's going to be very difficult to work with that project in the future."

Emerging from tough years

Spence's optimism follows aseries of difficult events in Churchill that began in 2016, when the former owner of the Port of Churchill, U.S. company OmniTrax, shuttered the facility and laid off its staff.

Two years later, flooding following a heavy storm washed out a section of the Hudson Bay Railway, effectively severing Churchill's land link with the rest of Manitoba.

The town then tried torefocus its economic development on ecotourism and scientific research, only to have those efforts derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brendan McEwan, an ecotourism company owner who serves as president of Churchill's chamber of commerce, said the town's economy has become morediverse after this spate of bad luck.

He points to new developments such as the opening of the Polar Bears International House interpretive centre in 2019, the University of Manitoba's nearly complete Churchill Marine Observatory and a new hotel under construction called the Blueberry Inn.

The port itself, McEwan said, is slated to service three ships this season: two supply vessels and one cruise ship. He said Churchill is eager to see far more traffic, even if that means Arctic Gateway has to make a massive investment into retrofitting the 92-year-old port.

"That's a lot less work than dredging Port Nelson," he quipped, poking fun at the NeeStaNan project.

The bitumen question

Yet just like NeeStaNan's proponents, McEwanis eager to see whether bitumen can be safely shipped through the Port of Churchill,adding all the science conducted out of Churchill will aid that effort.

"Increased shipping and industry and increased tourism have to go hand-in-hand with protection for this area," he said.

"Those are two things that might be hard to see together, but if there's a place that can do it, we're set up right now to do that."

The prospect of shipping fossil fuels alongtheHudson Bay Railway and the Hudson Bay coast, however, continues toalarmenvironmental scientists.

"This is such a fragile ecosystem," said Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan professor who is one of the world's leading experts on the ecology of the Hudson Bay lowlands.

"I've been critical of the slow responses of spills in southern Canadian Prairies. Up north, it's going to infinitely be harder and frankly I think almost impossible to really contain anykind of problems."

Brook said the immense tides on Hudson Bay and periodic intense storms make shipping hazardous, even when the bay is ice-free. The railway, meanwhile, was built over discontinuous permafrost and thus shifts as a result of seasonal freeze-thaw cycles, he said.

"As asociety we have to make decisions and certainly especially the people of the north:Do we want to really focus on tourism or do we want to develop LNG systems? Do we want to have trains full of bitumen rolling across the tundra?" Brook asked.

"I think at some level we have to realize you can't have both. I think you're going to have to pick one."