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A senior US diplomat had a low-key visit to Churchill, MB this month to learn about “trade opportunities” for Canada's only rail-connected deep-sea Arctic port, a trade hub gaining strategic importance amid rising tensions with the United States.
As Canada scrambles to respond to tariffs and annexation threats from US President Donald Trump, Churchill is at the centre of a proposed Arctic trade corridor to funnel western potash, grain, critical minerals and perhaps bitumen, from the west coast of Hudson Bay to new markets in Europe and elsewhere.
It’s a faster alternative route to Europe than the port of Montreal, providing ready access to South American markets, and the ability to bypass the Panama Canal — which the US now threatens to control.
The aging, under-utilized seaport and its flood-prone rail line has garnered attention during a federal election campaign where Arctic sovereignty is among the key issues.
Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced $175 million in investments over five years to support operations and maintenance of the Hudson Bay Railway and port, as well as invest more in northern defence.
Conservative leader Pierre Polievre — who has championed Churchill as an “Arctic gateway” — promises to accelerate expansion of the port and strengthen Canada’s presence in the Arctic, including new icebreakers and a bolstered military presence.
Against this backdrop, the April 7 visit by Rebecca Molinoff, the US Consul in Winnipeg, raised eyebrows in the northern Manitoba town.
She arrived in Churchill as part of a wider regional tour that included a stop at Thompson, MB, a nickel and copper mining hub.
Molinoff and an aide met with Mayor Mike Spence, a local indigenous businessman and regional powerbroker who is also co-chair of Arctic Gateway Group, a First-Nations owned consortium of more than 20 northern communities that recently acquired the port and Hudson Bay railroad.
“She’s aware that Canada is getting serious about investing in nation building,” Spence told Canada’s National Observer.
Molinoff was familiar with recently-announced resource deals by the port, as well as infrastructure investment plans by Canadian governments, Spence said.
She mentioned potash specifically, he recalled, and the port’s new agreement to start shipping Saskatchewan fertilizers to Europe starting this year.
Strategic location
The US Embassy in Ottawa confirmed the visit to Churchill, but it gave few details.
“Consul Molinoff recently visited Churchill … to learn more about the town’s tourism, research, and trade opportunities,” embassy spokesperson Ariel Pollock said in an email. “The visit underscored long standing bilateral ties between the United States and Manitoba.”
Spence said he was “not surprised” to see a US diplomat arrive unannounced in his town.
“Churchill is a strategic location. There was a US military base at Churchill going back to the 1940s, and there’s still a big runway at the airport,” he said.
David Cohen, a former US ambassador to Canada, visited Churchill three years ago, but Spence said the tone of discourse has changed since Trump’s re-election and his desire to make Canada the 51st state.
A week after the US consul’s visit to Churchill, a European Union delegation including EU Ambassador Geneviève Tuts and diplomats from 18 European countries — including Spain, Belgium and Sweden — travelled to Winnipeg.
They met Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and discussed the potential for shipping critical minerals and "energy products" from Manitoba via Hudson Bay.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has flagged Churchill as a potential western export route for Alberta bitumen. On the campaign trail, the Liberals and Conservatives have promised to speed up the review process to greenlight major national energy projects.
Carney has also talked of using the Arctic as an export point to Europe for Canadian energy.
With climate change making Canada’s northwest passage ice-free sooner than previously thought — Churchill’s current four-month summer shipping season could soon be extended to six with icebreakers, and the Arctic shipping route could be ice-free by the end of the century — Canadians are not the only ones taking notice.
The potential unlocking of northern trade routes and access to untapped resources is drawing the interest of geopolitical rivals China and Russia. Moscow is developing a fleet of LNG transport ships with ice-breaking capability for Arctic trade.
Melting permafrost
Despite this attention, huge challenges face the expansion of shipping and rail traffic through Churchill.
It will take enormous investment by governments and industry to bring the 1920s-era port to modern standards, not to mention a 1,300 km rail line that in its upper reaches runs through a flood-prone bog ecosystem that is prone to flooding and sinkholes from melting permafrost.
Some experts say the upper portion of the rail line would have to be rebuilt on more solid ground to the west if Churchill was ever to seriously expand.
At the same time, Churchill is a community of about 600 that swells to 900 each summer — a place that makes 90 per cent of its living from polar bears, beluga whales, and the 200-plus migratory bird species that frequent this biodiversity hotspot.
Port jobs are welcome, but the prospects of more shipping traffic and even bitumen exports are causing many locals to question what the future may hold.
Whoever forms the next federal government will need to decide how important it is for Canada to have a third oceanic shipping route — and whether it is willing to pay the billions it will take to make Manitoba a maritime province for real.
In the coming weeks, journalist Christopher Pollon will deliver a series of stories from his recent reporting trip to Churchill.
Christopher will explore the opportunities and challenges in building an Arctic Gateway through northern Manitoba, its role in the regional exploitation of critical minerals essential for a low-carbon economy, and what the infrastructure investments mean for an ecotourism industry also facing the impacts of climate change.
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