Churchill

The British freighter Farnworth was ploughing its way toward Button Bay last week to tie up to the brand new dock at Churchill, Manitoba. Her arrival woul 1 be a big moment for Canada's wheat farmers, Canada's railwaymen, Canada's history.

The shortest line between Liverpool and the great wheatfields of the Canadian Northwest passes through Hudson Bay. European ships have slipped in and out of Hudson Bay since the 17th Century. For the past 50 years there has been agitation for a railway and port on the Bay to take out wheat without sending it overland 1,000 miles farther to Montreal. When Canadians began to work seriously on the problem it was discovered that there were only two possible ports on the western side of Hudson Bay: Port Nelson, at the mouth of the tidal Nelson River, and Fort Churchill, at the emptying of Churchill River into an indentation known as Button Bay. The nearest railway ended at the remote settlement known as The Pas, about 500 miles away from both harbors in Manitoba.

During the Liberal administration of Premier William Lyon Mackenzie King, Minister of Railways Charles Dunning asked Engineer Frederick Palmer (now Sir Frederick, K.C.M.G.) to come over from England and settle the relative merits of Port Nelson v. Fort Churchill. Engineer Palmer, who built the bridge in India over the River Sone, is now 69. He is generally recognized as a world authority on harbors and waterways. He went to Hudson Bay, poked about among the jack-pine and reindeer moss of the two trading posts and finally decided on Fort Churchill. Heavy tides and spring freshets make the 15-mile channel from the Nelson River to Hudson Bay too difficult to keep open.

Canadians went to work; 510 miles of railroad were built and ballasted. Fort Churchill used to consist of a half-dozen trappers' huts, a mounted police detachment, a Hudson's Bay Co. factor's post and a dozen moon-faced Eskimos. Later gangs went in and built the temporary town of wooden barracks that is now known simply as Churchill. The harbor was dredged, the wharf was built, a huge grain elevator put up. Churchill last week had mechanical facilities to handle 800,000 bushels of grain a day. About 530,000 bushels will be sent this year as a test. Part of it was actually there, ready to pour into the hold of the Farnworth, the rest to be sent in her sister ship the Warkworth.

In 1929 the three prairie provinces that hope to use Churchill--Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta--raised 276,664,000 bushels of wheat and exported almost four-fifths of it. Icy Hudson Bay is open for navigation during July, August, September and the first week of October.

In spite of its hundreds of workmen and laborers, Churchill still had no permanent residents last week beyond the trappers, the police, the Eskimos and the Hudson's Bay factor. This is by government order. The engineers who built Churchill harbor have made an ambitious town plan for Churchill. There are to be parks and playgrounds, wide streets, residential and business districts. Because of Churchill's subarctic winters most of the inhabitants will live in small apartment houses heated from a central station. Special arrangements for water supply and sewage disposal will have to be made. To prevent famine and plague, the Canadian Government will not allow any settlers until next year when the building will be well under way. With the first freezing of the harbor this year, Churchill's present population must move out.

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