Sparring with Lauren Harris (or Churchill 2026)

What we were waiting for at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre.  It is curious that the renown Canadian artist Lawren Harris while searching for spiritual light in the artic did not concentrate on painting the Aurora Borealis. Perhaps he needed exposure to the enthusiasm of someone with a doctorate in solar physics, like our  instructor Danielle. Perhaps he required her deft descriptions of the Sun’s eleven-year cycle over which time the numbers of sunspots grow and each spot casts gargantuan loops of flowing electrified gas into our star’s atmosphere; loops that arc for days or even months.  Perhaps Harris would be intrigued that during this cycle magnetic field lines twist tighter and tighter across the sun’s surface. Perhaps he didn’t grasp that the blistering outer atmosphere of our star, its so-called Corona, expands into space, not spherically like a shell, but instead blooms like a flower pushing out petals.  Would Harris find the aurora more sublime if h...

 Lawren S. Harris had his icebergs .  Monet's muse was a haystack . Mine?  A rocket launcher. 

What architecture comes to mind when you hear the word ‘city’? What touches the sky? Perhaps skyscrapers or church spires?  Even for a northern city?  In Churchill the sky seems buttressed by the grain elevators in its forlorn port. Agricultural elevators and silos that form a cathedral to commerce,  a basilica that is currently missing its full complement of disciples: engineers, stevedores, and rail workers.  However the atmosphere is filled with optimism that this stasis is about to change. The Federal and Provincial governments' plan a challenging endeavour called the Churchill Plus project, which that combines the railway with a revitalised version of this deep water port. It that succeeds then the treasures of the prairies can be shipped to Europe more efficiently than going through Montreal . This presumes that somehow the ice in Hudson Bay loosens its grip for more than four months. When you imagine ‘downtown’ do you conjure rows of attached shops with big gl...

Dogs' eye-view of the Wapusk Park region trails.    “I’m The Big Dog,” announced the professional dog sledder Dave Daley after mounting the steps onto our little bus. I couldn’t hear the quip one of us tourists offered up but, deadly serious, the musher responded with “No. I’M The Big Dog.”  His defiance was as intimidating and glorious as a warrior’s feather headdress.  Co-owner of Wapusk Adventures kennel, The Big Dog’s attitude coloured his stories (e.g. about the heated log cabin kybo built by interns) and his instructions about our sledding excursion. As our group listened in the large shed with the wood stove, he pointed out his son. I asked if he was Little Dog.  The Big Dog said, “Oh, careful.  My son doesn’t like that.” So I ask, “O.k. is he Sun Dog?”  The sun in the sky is often bracketed by sun dogs in Manitoba’s crisp weather.  But son-dog didn’t hear that and came out out of the office saying,  “Who called me Little Dog? Don’t l...

 Who is a Churchillian? It is a bit of a puzzle to determine because for a long time no one has been born there. About 900 souls thrive in Churchill, but their moms flew to big city hospitals to give birth.  The town also has more people than those who live there year round. Hospitality workers come for the bear season or the aurora season.  There are park rangers and researchers. And a thousand tourists a year.  I want to give a shout out to our itinerant chef at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. This one guy had to create and serve meals all on his own. The other chef was stuck in Cuba. Trump cut off oil to that country causing Air Canada to stop flights. If planes landed they wouldn’t have enough fuel to take off back home.  So here he was feeding two groups of visitors of 20 people or more each. And, as I pointed out in another blog post, the food was delicious. I was surprised though there was no decaf coffee since our group and the first one we overla...

 What do the words “research station” conjure? Perhaps cheap, grooved wall-panelling? Perhaps a cafeteria table surrounded by a few 40-something year-old men with grizzly beards wearing lumber jack shirts and eating spam? When I knew I was going to be at a research station in Churchill, Manitoba I looked forward to this and to a built-in desk under a window in a bedroom appropriate for a monk. I think it might be best to describe the Churchill Northern Studies Centre building by starting at its front door on a cold February afternoon. Its welcome matt is a grating under foot to scrap off snow. Surely that’s not remarkable, except that there is nothing under the grating for several feet.  Human fertiliser also drops down the composting toilets’ waste pipe to the basement level. But I’m getting ahead of myself. (Oops -- was that a pun?) Churchill Northern Studies Centre's Welcome Mat Stepping through the set of double entrance doors one becomes enveloped in the sweet light float...