Churchill City, Port & Fort

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 glass windows set in brick walls?  That’s not Churchill.  Instead envision merchandise housed in sheds with corrugated metal siding.  Now imagine spectacular murals painted on these sheds. When American Omnitrax shutdown the railway in 2017 the despondent towns folk felt abandoned. So artist Kal Barteski, who frequently enjoys drawing a polar bear in the Winnipeg zoo, organised eighteen artists from all over the world to volunteer their time and talent  (in cooperation with PangeaSeed Foundation and SeaWalls: Artists for Oceans). They produced an art series on shops and abandoned building through out the community. 

Can you guess what this building is?  (The answer is at the end of this post.)

The downtown cores of Canadian cities are populated with libraries, playgrounds, hospitals, theatres, and, most importantly,  ice rinks.  In Churchill these are packaged together into a vast building that from the exterior looks like a shopping mall.  However inside the building the wide and high corridors are not laid out in the usual boring, linear arrangement; rather the sunlight-filled space is defined by volumes that wander off on engaging angles. 

The core: library, hospital, playground, theatre, arena, etc.

And what do you think of when the word ‘Fort’ is uttered? Just outside the city, Fort Churchill occupied a chunk of the Churchill-Wapusk region. However unlike fortified castles or North American stockades this fort was originally a mid-20th century American Strategic Air Command base with a rocket range.  As American maintenance waned, Canadian participation increased; Canadians show pride in the Black Brant research rockets shot into the atmosphere from this location. 

For more on rocket launchers, see the next post. 

Now in ruins, the Fort's dilapidated rocket launchers haunt the landscape around the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. One launcher looks like a house capped by a TV tower grown using steroids; it has the presence of a cherished pet. It is always there, looking back at you, whenever you gaze out the windows of the CNSC. It wags a mechanical tail in my imagination. Given our sojourn was for viewing aurora in a winter sky, these launchers seem quite apropos.  Back in an era of seemingly eternal-fraternity between Canada and the U.S. of A. these structures tossed towards the heavens data-gathering, alloy cylinders as if playing a joyous game with the colourful, dancing lights of our planet’s magnetic field. 

My joy has been to experience Churchill City in the season of pristine, deep snow that compliments so well the painted, unconventional `shed architecture'. The Cold War Fort Churchill that was intended to spy on Soviet spies instead generated fundamental research into the awe-inspiring Aurora Borealis.  And the Port of Churchill, starting now to stretch its wings, could be resurrected like a Firebird.  Churchill is a city unexpected. 

p.s. The mystery building is the supermarket.