Chapter 4 - Churchill, Manitoba

What does it mean to be in Churchill, Manitoba? It is a city of 900 permanent residents on the shore of the Hudson Bay. Because of its unique location, at certain times of the year, Churchill becomes a hub of polar bear interaction. How many polar bears? Coincidentally, estimates are at about 900. This makes it the polar bear capital of the world and also gives the town a 1:1 polar bear to person ratio. In summer, seeing a polar bear is a bit of a spotty affair. The bears are there, but they’re not congregating in any place in particular as they do in the fall.

Inuktuk

A brief history of Churchill I have gleaned from tour guides and locals- A person came to the Churchill bay looking for the Northwest Passage. Through a series of poor decisions they ended up staying there through the winter. Spoiler alert- they pretty much all died. Then they got a street named after them. Repeat 3-4 times. Eventually it became the (most important/biggest/best? NTS- evaluate this claim) sea port in the Canadian north, shipping huge amounts of grain to Africa, Europe, and Asia. It also has pretty much the only hospital in the northern provinces (Nunavut, The Yukon).

The granary

First ship of the season at port

The Churchill River

It is still unarguably a small town. When I got there the first ship of the year had just come into port and the town was all abuzz with talk about it. I live a few miles from the port of Oakland, one of the largest ports on the west coast, and I never even stop to think about the vast quantity of ships coming in and out. If you consider it for a moment, each one is a little bit amazing all on its own. People have come across the sea from a strange foreign place, bringing with them goods, money, and stories. Maybe you are friends with some of the men, maybe the snow machine you ordered is on this ship, maybe you are just excited that the ice in the bay has finally broken (in early July).

T

This is a half-built (realistically, quite a bit less than half) hotel that was begun 30 years ago by a master mason. Apparently he is still working on it. Very, very slowly.

Summer brings multitudinous Beluga Whales into Churchill (2-3 thousand). The bay and river positively teem with them as they feed on local fish and breed. You really can’t look out over any local body of water without spotting a dozen within minutes. Other attractions in Churchill include great birding (!) and the presence of the Aurora Borealis, another long time interest of mine. So, as you can see, the reasons I might want to come to Churchill are readily apparent. But the reasons why those special 900 might choose to live here are much more interesting to me.

Bearded Seal!

The whales were very curious about all human things. They seemed to especially like the motor.

I also went kayaking with them and they'd bump into the boat the investigate it.

So what does it mean to be a resident of Churchill, Manitoba? It means enduring winters so harsh and long that you only get around 4 hours of light a day and that trees only grow branches on their south side because the north winds are too harsh. It means living shoulder-to-shoulder with creatures that are one of the few in the natural world that will willingly eat people. It means being a 20 hour train ride from the nearest, for example, Tim Hortons. It must be strange to watch television advertisements in Churchill. All of the ads are for things you have no realistic access to. No one is traveling to the nearest Quiznos to try their new seafood sub (aside- really?) Impulse buys are literally impossible. It is advertising into the void.

This is a place where polar bears who are feeling down can come and just get held.

Just kidding, it's a jail! But it's not so bad, the bears are only put here if they become dangerous in the town (and they are, actually, really dangerous animals) and are let out back onto the ice when winter comes.

Paintings on the walls of the Northern, Churchill's only grocery store. Honestly it was kind of an everything store.

Churchill is also a tourist town. When a guest asked what was more important to the town, the port or tourism, the guide answered without hesitation. So things can get kinda chintzy. My hotel has made a valiant effort to construct every possible thing out of logs. The logs walls and log tables are obviously nice rustic touches, and the log lamps and chandeliers are cute and well put together. The log chairs in particular have a kind of sloppily put together, attached to your parents’ refrigerator kind of charm to them.  I do kind of wish, thought, that the log bed were a little bit more comfortable. And when I turned on the tap a bunch of twigs (little logs?) just spilled out of it. Perhaps a little too dedicated to the theme?

Churchill is also a dog sledding center

Those are some strong dogs

A trading post that has been around since Churchill's old days.

 The tour guide today said that a small patch of lichen on a rock takes a thousand years to grow to that size. Pretty profound stuff, especially considering what it implies about the agelessness of some of these totally mossy ones. However, one very sharp woman quickly inquired about how this could be possible, considering that a nearby monument was covered in the stuff. The monument was no more than 30 years old. Our guide kinda brushed it off in a half-annoyed, half apathetic kinda way. 

A crashed plane called 'miss piggy' just outside of town

You could climb all over it. The only thing the guides were concerned about was that there weren't any bears around.

I don't think this kinda thing would fly (/pun) in the states, there'd be fences and warning signs and probably they just would've removed the whole thing.

Most of the people providing tourist services were temporary residents, living here for the Whale and Bear seasons (not Summer and Fall, mind you). They live here for 5 months, then go someplace else and do the same job there, whether it’s waitressing or tour guiding or bar tending. It’s the kind of lifestyle engaged in by young people for a few years before they decide to settle down. The town has a very international feel to it because of all these seasonal workers. Working at my hotel alone there was an American man who prayed over his mountainous plate of breakfast meats every morning, a perfect Australian couple with perfect hair and perfect teeth, a Japanese girl who got attacked by seagulls, and a French woman who had one of those accents so dizzyingly charming that you think it must be at least a little bit fake.

foreground- whales
background- prince of wales (fort)

Living in Churhill probably gives a valuable sense of perspective about what it is important, what is real. On my last night in town, the power went out for the entire town. The attitude of everyone in town was a soft ‘eh, what’re you gonna do?’ and ‘don’t expect it to come back any time soon’. Nobody was stressing themselves out about it, nor about anything else as far as I could tell. One young man who worked at the train station told me that he was born and raised in Churchill, but he had since gone away to the big city for college. And although he appreciated it in some ways, it wasn’t really for him, he reported, too many people, too many things.

It won't be long now til I'm back in California, but there's still a lot of Canada to cover. Expect at least 3 or 4 more updates before travelblog goes back into retirement. Next time- Toronto!

Chapter 3.- Winnipeg: In which the author reveals an irrational fondness for Winnipeg

Warning /!\ WORDBLOG /!\ 

~scroll down for the pretty pictures that you are actually here for~

 I bought a journal, which is mixed news for my production of this blog. On the one hand, writing in it comes easier and I can jot notes at my convenience. On the other, it adds an additional layer to the process of producing work that I find fit for public consumption. Case in point, my margins are now filled with possible titles for my Winnipeg entry, including sure hits like ‘Winnipeg: Grand Capitol of Nowhere’ and ‘Winnipeg: Perfect Metropolis of the Future’ and ‘Winnipeg: Evidently we Still Have More to Say about Winnipeg’. With the journal, my ideas are in constant flux as I cross out and doodle and add parenthetical asides and write up the sides of the pages. Writing on the computer makes things much more crystallized. Hopefully, the two step process of writing and then transcribing will make the entries better and not just far less organized.

First surprise- Winnipeg is hot. Florida hot. The kind of hot that makes you scan anxiously for the most shaded possible path as you walk. You drink from every water fountain you pass. The moment you step outside you audibly say ‘oh shit’ to no one in particular. You sweat just standing there and every individual article of clothing or object in your pockets just adds to your discomfort. On the train I learned that Winnipeg is most famous for being one of Canada’s coldest spots (below -40 in the winter), but the harsh weather extends to the summer as well.

Winnipeg is an odd duck in a lot of ways. Back in the early 1900’s, it was a major hub of trade, receiving goods from the east and shipping them off west. Winnipeg more or less was the Northwest Passage, in other words. It grew extremely quickly to and at one point looked like it was going to become Canada’s most populous boom town. A lot of money and effort was put into making it a respectable big city. Its Union Station was designed the same firm who did New York’s Grand Central. The capital building there is impressively grand, more appropriate for the capital of a large country than a province. They planned well for the city’s growth and implemented an impressive circular highway system that would encircle the burgeoning metropolis. It was once estimated that Winnipeg would grow to be a city of 4 million. Winnipeg has a fourth of that.

So what happened? Well, the Panama Canal was constructed, and suddenly there was a much more convenient way to cross the continent. Winnipeg became a place without a purpose. The station, although beautiful, is woefully underused. The capital building is austere and awesome, as any great seat of power should be, but of course Winnipeg is definitively not a seat of power. The highway originally planned for easing transportation within the sprawling city, now encircles mostly farm land, too far from the compact city center to effect much at all. This story has all the makings of a tragedy, and in some ways it is, but Winnipeg is still a city that was built with greatness in mind.

The principles of heavily involved city planning have served it well.

Because Winnipeg is such a cold city, it has a complex network of indoor skywalks and underground paths, all lined with shops and restaurants. I was able to navigate through the entire downtown without stepping outside once, laughing aloud with pleasant surprise at how cool and futuristic it all felt. I can only imagine how important this is when the city gets inhospitably cold. It has a great, centrally located park, with tons of pedestrian paths and public art. The theaters and museums of a much grander city. My approach when I get to a new city is to plan a complex walking path around everything that I'm interested in seeing. These pictures meander around various notable city sights.

 First, we have the Forks- a large and varied city park with a great farmer's market in the middle.

Le Bench

 A lot of really neat public art attached to Manitoba's Native peoples. This one, I think, is representative of a meeting circle that tribes once gathered at.

A rather impressive pedestrian bridge across to the french district of Winnipeg, St. Boniface

I mean, I know we're in pseudo-france, but this is just ridiculous

 

University in French district

The titular St. Boniface Cathedral. It was gutted by a fire, but the front wall still stands

 

that's... a lot of cathedrals. Maybe it's time to call it quits, guys?

And here's local hero Mark Tw- What do you mean that's not Mark Twain?! (More on this guy later)

Back in the Forks now, bridge from St. Boniface. I told you my path meandered.

I can't emphasize how cool this structure was. Combination star-gazing/fire pit/cultural meeting place

Each metal thing points you to the stars that make up certain constellations if you look through them from the correct angle

Ok,now we're at the state building

"Here's that shipment of brightly pained bears you ordered sir"
"Just strew them about all over the place"

 

The figure atop the building is called 'the golden boy'. There's some kinda tale associated with him, but I don't know it. I am such a bad blogger =(

There's a ton of occult symbolism in this building, I guess it was fashionable at the time.

So grand! The people at the security desk asked me what I wanted to do and I told them I just wanted to kinda look around. They kinda shrugged at each other and said 'sure, as long as you don't go into any offices or anything'. I don't think it was a request they get often.

Lotta important decisions about, like, Manitoba, gettin made here.

 

They are still quite fond of the queen here in Canada. A lot of banners still up for the recent Jubilee.

Randomly, a classic car show on the front lawn of the capital building. Yeah, whatever.

Finally, the under-construction museum of Human Rights looms ironically over the city, looking for all the world like a terrible dreadnaught of war, or a fascist terror-monument meant to crush the spirits of the proletariat. Maybe it’ll look better when it’s finished.

Next time, we'll learn a little more about Manitoba (you can hardly wait!)