What is Churchill, Manitoba?

Churchill is a town in northern Manitoba on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay, with a population of about 900. The town is famous as the 'polar bear capital of the world' for the seasonal migration of about 1,000 polar bears (the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population) through the area each autumn. Churchill is the northern terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway and home to the Port of Churchill, Canada's only deep-water Arctic port.

Churchill was founded in 1717 as a Hudson's Bay Company trading post called Fort Churchill (originally Fort Prince of Wales). The Prince of Wales Fort, a stone fortification built between 1731 and 1771 at the mouth of the Churchill River, is one of the largest pre-Confederation stone forts in Canada and is preserved as a National Historic Site. The fort was captured by the French naval force of Admiral Jean-Francois de La Perouse in 1782 (the northernmost battle of the American Revolutionary War). Churchill was a key port during the Second World War and the Cold War, serving as a Canada-United States rocket research site (the Churchill Rocket Range, active 1957 to 1985).

The town is most famous today for polar-bear viewing during October and November, when bears congregate on the coast waiting for sea ice to form on Hudson Bay. The Western Hudson Bay polar bear population is one of 19 polar-bear subpopulations worldwide and has declined from about 1,200 bears in the 1980s to about 1,000 today as the sea-ice season has shortened by about 30 days. Tundra Buggy and PolarRover vehicles take visitors out onto the tundra to view bears safely. Wapusk National Park (designated 1996) protects 11,475 square kilometres of bear denning habitat south of Churchill.

Churchill also draws beluga whale viewers in summer (about 60,000 belugas visit the Churchill River estuary in July and August), aurora-viewing tourists in winter, and scientific researchers year-round at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. The Churchill Marine Observatory operated by the University of Manitoba studies sea-ice and Arctic marine ecology. The town is connected to southern Manitoba by the Hudson Bay Railway (about 1,700 kilometres), with passenger service operated by Via Rail (the Winnipeg-Churchill 'Hudson Bay' route, currently the only Via Rail service to the Arctic). The railway was severely damaged by flooding in spring 2017, suspending service for 18 months until repairs were completed in November 2018. Churchill Cree, Inuit, Dene, and Metis residents represent about 65 per cent of the town's population.