Pre-History

Human presence in the Churchill area dates as far back as 1700 BC. Tent rings, food caches and kayak stands remain as evidence of the Pre-Dorset, Dorset and Inuit peoples that used this area as seasonal hunting grounds for thousands for years. These sites can still be visited at the Seahorse Gully site on Churchill’s West Peninsula or along the glacial kame at Twin Lakes.

First Europeans

The first Europeans to arrive in Churchill were not looking for new places to live, but for a Northwest Passage to the spice-rich Orient. The first expedition to over-winter in the Churchill area was led by Jens Munck, a Danish navigator. In 1619, he landed his crew and two ships near the mouth of the Churchill River and christened the area ‘New Danes Land’. After a less than hospitable winter, Munck and the other two surviving crew members sailed one ship back to Europe in 1620.

The Fur Trade

The ‘Slave Women’, a Caribou Dene captured by the Cree, helped make peace between the two nations almost a century later. One captive, Thanadelthur, convinced then-governor of York Factory, James Knight, to send a peace envoy to make contact with her people to the north. By 1717, the Hudson’s Bay Company would establish a trading post along the Churchill River, primarily to trade with the Dene or as they were called then ‘Northern Indians’.

To secure control of the fur trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company began building a massive stone fortress where the Churchill River meets Hudson Bay in 1731. Dubbed Prince of Wales Fort, this majestic military fortress would become something of a boondoggle, taking forty years to complete. Undermanned, the Fort would ultimately surrender to French forces in 1782. That winter, the combination of the fort’s destruction and a smallpox epidemic running rampant in the north would, in effect, ended Churchill’s significance in the northwest fur trade.
During its brief lifetime, Prince of Wales Fort was home to several important achievements. Churchill became the site of the first astronomical observations made in Canada in 1769. It also became the departure point for the first overland journey made by a European, Samuel Hearne, to the Arctic Ocean.

Northern Seaport

By the late 1920s, western Canadians’ demand for a prairie port eventually brought about the construction on the Hudson Bay Railroad and the Port of Churchill. The last spike of the railroad was driven in 1929 and the first two ships loaded with grain left the port in 1931. Churchill changed from a remote outpost to a booming remote outpost almost overnight.

Fort Churchill, located five miles east of Churchill, was first established in 1942 by the United States Air Force as part of the Crimson Route, a proposed overseas air support route to Europe. After the Second World War, Canada and the United States jointly sponsored a training and experimental centre.

By mid-1950s, Churchill was identified as an area of significance for Auroral activity. In 1957, the Churchill Rocket Research Range began operation. Over its thirty year lifespan, over 3000 sounding rockets would be launched conducting experiments on the northern lights and the ionosphere.

Fort Churchill was a thriving military community through the 50s and 60s with many of Churchill’s current residents growing up there. The base was decommissioned in the mid-60s and now the only remnants of this community are buildings such as L5, the Polar Bear Jail, the old Navy Base and the Rocket Range, now home to the Churchill Northern Studies Centre.

In the early 70s, public housing and a large Town Centre Complex were constructed as part of buy levitra online a redevelopment project financed by the Provincial and Federal governments. While the military presence has disappeared, Churchill still benefits from operations at the Port of Churchill and, of course, polar bear and beluga whale tourism.