 |  It took 3000 men working at a frantic pace to complete the 70,000 metric tonnes (2.5 million-bushel) capacity grain handling facility by 1931. A further 70,000 metric tonnes facility was added in 1955. A token one-ton load of wheat was shipped from the Port of Churchill in 1929. (renamed Hudson Bay Port in 1997) The first real commercial shipment (277 thousand bushels) of Canadian Prairie wheat left Churchill aboard the SS Farnsworth out of England. The largest shipment carried by the freight liner Berhard Oldendorff weighed in at 43,500 metric tonnes (1.6 million bushels). The rest is history! |
| The grain handling season is during the fall months with freeze-up coming as early as the end of October. Many ships today have ice-breaking capabilities but the latest reported leaving was by the Canadian ship, MV Arctic that weighed anchor on November 17, 1979. | |
  |  Construction took 40 years to complete. This massive structure had walls 12 metres (40 feet) thick and 5 metres (16 feet) high with 40 mounted guns, all designed to keep the rival French fur traders out of the lucrative Hudson Bay area. Prince of Wales Fort was one of the most massive stone structures on the continent and fell to the French in 1783 without sa single shot being fired. The French burned all the interior buildings and tried to disable the fort by exploding charges in the mouths of the cannons and blowing up the outer walls. |
| The fort was returned to the British but no attempt was made to reoccupy it and it lay in ruins until the Canadian government began restoring it in the 1930's. | |
 |  At one time it was the largest joint Canada-US military installation in the world. Built in 1942 as a response to the threat posed by German submarines in WW II rumored to have been spotted in the Hudson Strait. It grew into a miniature metropolis , housing close to 4,500 servicemen and support staff, complete with its own 620-seat movie theatre, bakery, post office, gift shop, bowling alley, hockey rink, and hospital - plus chapels and schools. heated walkways linked most of the buildings which were wired to two power supplies to insure there was never a blackout. |
| The Town of Churchill (population 150) depended on the base for light, power, fire fighting equipment, road construction, medical facilities, and schools.In 1964 both American and Canadian troops had pulled out and left the base to the Federal Department of Public Works.Scientific work, maneuvers, and survival training were still carried on until the last serviceman left in 1980. In 1981 the Fort was leveled by bulldozers leaving only the airport, fire station, hydro plant, and a few other buildings as reminders of the glory that was once Fort Churchill. | |
 |  In 1768 an astral observatory was established at the as-yet-uncompleted Prince of Wales Fort , to study the transit of Venus across the Sun. The first rocket launched to mark the international year in 1957 brought such excellent results that the U. S. Air Force built a permanent range. Jointly funded by NASA and Canada's National Research Council, the rocket range was an integral part of the town for 25 years, launching over 3,400 weather and research rockets, until the final countdown on May 8, 1985 when the last rocket was fired. |
| The observatory was also used to investigate the Aurora Borealis. | |
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| In 1670 the Hudson's Bay Company is given a royal charter and the exclusive right to trade for furs with the natives in all of the lands whose rivers drained into the Hudson Bay. The region was named Rupert's Land. Three centuries ago, when the first fur traders arrived, they used a very different route - through Hudson Bay. | |
 | The fur trade was a complex business, and international events made it even more complex. England and France were involved in a series of wars over who would own the colonies in the New World and elsewhere. Despite their forbidding locations, the Hudson Bay posts were worth fighting over. During the late 1600s and the early 1700s, Prince of Wales Fort changed hands several times. |
| In 1821 the North West Company (created by Montreal merchants in 1784 as a competitor) merged with the Hudson's Bay Company to create a real fur trading monopoly. The rivalry had been expensive and now the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, George Simpson, moved to cut costs. One result was fewer jobs, effecting the Metis workers the most. After 1850, it became clear that the Hudson's Bay Company could no longer govern Rupert's Land. In 1867, four of the eastern provinces of British North America joined together to form the Dominion of Canada. The Hudson's Bay Company and the new nations of Canada struck a deal soon after Confederation. The Company would hand over Rupert's Land to the Canadian government. In return, the government would pay £300,00 ($570,000.00) and give it one-seventh of the land in the "fertile belt' between the Red River and The Rockies - about 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres). Canada would annex the entire region and call it the North-West Territories. | |
EMAIL: aurora@cancom.net AURORA BOREALIS © Copyright 1997 All Rights Reserved C.A.A.E. Churchill, Manitoba, Canada Phone: (204) 885-3330 Fax: (204) 831-5348 Email: aurora@cancom.net | |