There are no ice roads to Churchill. It's too far. I've ridden the line twice: once from Thompson and once from Winnipeg. It is an epic ride! I recall that on the final leg heading straight north the track speed was already 10 mph. The train swayed back and forth. There were telephone (or telegraph) poles along the east side of the tracks. Instead of a single pole, which would likely fall over when the tundra turned to oatmeal in the summer, the poles were set up as a tripod. The railroad was originally built to haul wheat from the plains of Manitoba and Alberta to a port on Hudson Bay, as it was the closest port for shipping to Europe. As it turned out, Hudson Bay was frozen over for much of the year. Later, much wheat was actually being shipped west to Asia. The cars full of wheat were dumped using some kind of fancy rotary rig something like how they dump coal, if I remember right. There are other even smaller villages on Hudson Bay. Most are supplied either by air or by small freight boats in summer. Churchill is mostly famous as a tourist destination. They come in the fall to go see the polar bears that gather on the delta just before freeze up. There is also the oldest stone fort in North America there, and beluga whales in the bay. It is a true frontier town. On my last trip there, I lay awake in my Pullman bunk and gazed up at the Northern Lights as the train slowly picked its way through the darkness. During the day Cree Indians would have the conductor stop the train in the boreal forest. They would get off and quickly disappear into the vastness. The train would also pick up canoe adventurers when they stuck a pole with a red rag tied to the top in the center of the track. The train reminded me of stories I read of travel 100+ years ago. I hope they do fix it. I'd like to ride it again. Someone seemed to compare it to a railroad in NJ, but actually I compare it to riding the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1870s. Most of the track goes through vast wilderness, and you can ride all day without hearing the horn blow for a crossing. It's a completely different feel from riding VIA 1 from Winnipeg to Vancouver. Don't miss out--ride it while you can.
Kent in SD,
adventure traveler
