Nearly limitless potential in business and tourism – that is the key for a group of western Canadian railway advocates who plan to hold their annual meeting in Flin Flon.
Elden Boon is the president of the Hudson Bay Route Association (HBRA), an advocacy group hoping to promote both use of the Hudson Bay Railway and Port of Churchill. A number of communities who stand to gain from the ongoing operation of the rail line are members of the group, including Flin Flon.
“It’s a win-win for all of the north and it’s a win-win for Western Canada. It’s part of a much bigger picture. I don’t even know if we can envision the potential it could have,” said Boon.
The group has arranged to hold their annual general meeting in Flin Flon on April 3 and 4. Boon said the group typically rotates their meetings between Manitoba and Saskatchewan each year and had planned to hold the meeting in Hudson Bay, Sask. until Flin Flon city councillors, including Ken Pawlachuk, pitched them on coming to Flin Flon.
“This was unique. When Flin Flon had put the proposal forward, Ken pointed out something - you’ve got both here,” said Boon.
“They painted a pretty great picture. It went to a vote on the floor and it was decided to come to Flin Flon.”
It will be the first time in more than 50 years that the HBRA will hold its annual meeting in Flin Flon.
The move comes at a time of immense change for northern rail transport, likely to have a ripple effect coming from the north throughout western Canada.
From 1997, the Hudson Bay Railway and the Port of Churchill was owned and operated by Colorado-based rail company Omnitrax. At that time, the port was tied to the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), which shipped millions of tonnes of wheat through Churchill
When the CWB was sold in 2015, grain shipments to Churchill slowed down and eventually stopped. When the grain stopped coming, Omnitrax shut down the port and attempted to sell the railway. Despite attempts to branch out and ship other commodities through the port and railway, little changed.
In May 2017, overland flooding damaged portions of the rail line between Gillam and Churchill. Omnitrax shut the line down and, despite protests and political and legal pressure, refused to fix it, stranding the town of Churchill and cutting off one of Manitoba’s most popular tourist areas.
Boon said the HBRA’s relationship with Omnitrax had become strained.
“We’ve gone through a couple of years of not really having any direction, of having ownership that didn’t really want to do anything. In the last two years, Omnitrax refused to even talk to us. It’s been a number of years where Omnitrax seemed to not want to do anything anyway - they weren’t wanting to invest in their rail or the port,” he said.
“It was a challenge for us. We lost that connection with them. When the line washed out and they refused to fix it, we had Churchill in isolation. Our mandate was in doubt - what were we going to promote? It definitely wasn’t in our best interest to promote Omnitrax at that time. The last two years have been a real challenge for us.”
There was light at the end of the tunnel in 2018. Arctic Gateway Group, an entity consisting of a major agriculture supplier from Saskatchewan, an investment firm in Toronto and two northern Manitoba-based groups, bought and fixed the line late last year, along with the port. The City of Flin Flon, along with dozens of other northern Manitoba communities, were offered and bought shares in One North, one of the two northern groups, giving the city a stake in the railway’s success.
Omnitrax estimated would take months to fix all the washouts and damage to the rail line. Using special underlays and processes, Arctic Gateway workers fixed the line in six weeks. By December, passenger and transport trains were, both literally and figuratively, back on track.
“What Arctic Gateway did from Sept. 1 through to Oct. 10 was a monumental task,” said Jim Berscheid, a The Pas-based farmer and entrepreneur who serves as the first vice president of the HBRA.
“The effort of the task and the people who did that repair - those guys need some recognition. That was amazing. The technology they put in... even the experienced rail guys were going, ‘What are we doing here?’”
“These are exciting times,” said Boon.
“We’ve seen Omnitrax taken to task and some of the things that a lot of people didn’t understand or know about have been exposed. I think now, the general public in Canada has a good feeling of what Churchill is and the potential Churchill has. That probably wasn’t there before.”
With ownership of the line now back in Canadian hands, Boon sees almost boundless potential with the railway. He sees the track as a faster way for farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba to ship out grain, pulses and other crops, as a way to enhance economic activity in northern Manitoba and in the northern territories, as a potential boost to tourism and as a way to quickly ship minerals and mining product out of the north.
“When we talk about business, when this railway transaction happened, the rail companies in The Pas were getting phone calls asking ‘Will you haul this?’ or ‘Will you haul that?’ There was a whole market there that nobody was looking at. Now, with the change in the competition, there is excitement there that there hasn’t been in a long time,” said Berscheid.
Boon points toward work other countries with arctic shipping activity, such as Russia, saying that there are important uses for a facility like the Port of Churchill.
“When we look at what other countries are doing with the arctic, you can see a lot of minerals being exported out of Churchill. That hasn’t been going on,” said Boon.
Berscheid said portions of the railway, including the portion running from Sherritt Junction north of Cranberry Portage to Pukatawagan, have been underutilized for tourism and business.
“If you go from Cranberry Portage up to Pukatawagan and ride that and go by Pawistik... the [Pisew Falls] over by Thompson are pretty, but Pawistik is just ‘Holy cow!’ There’s a few other beautiful spots along that line too and we don’t get the opportunity to see some of that stuff. Tourism is a benefit of this. That side of things is interesting,” he said.
Berscheid, a northern businessman himself, also sees big gains to be made in using and promoting the railway.
“When that port is in and done and everything is running, now you have a port that is open and can be used by any grain company, any mining company. If you want to ship commodities, it’s open. There are already a half a dozen grain companies that want to utilize it. I know when we first had conversations, there was a discussion that there was nobody interested in shipping grain. That sure changed around in a heck of a hurry,” he said.
