Melting ice is forcing the ‘polar bear capital’ to attract tourists in new ways

Tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of polar bears flock to Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay, Canada.

But its signature animals are shrinking in the face of warming weather. Even the earth is moving.

In a bid to revitalize its port and railroad, the remote town, where forest meets tundra, turned to tourism after the closure of its military base.

As climate change looms, leaders are beginning to design more flexible buildings and seek to attract more diverse visitors if, as scientists fear, sea ice retreats. to the huge population of polar bears.

Residents, government officials and experts say the town is a model for coping with dramatic changes and attribute it to a rural mindset focused on fixing, not whining.

How did Churchill become the ‘polar bear capital of the world’?

Churchill is 1,700 kilometers north of Winnipeg. The town had thousands of people before the military base and a rocket research launch site that was closed decades ago. Those sites fell into decay, and the once-bustling port closed. Train services stopped for more than a year as the weather damaged the unmaintained tracks.

As the town shrinks, bears began going to town more often, no longer afraid of the noise from the base and rocket launches, and became desperate as climate change shrunk the Hudson Bay ice they depended on as a base for hunting.

A local mechanic built a battered and souped-up recreational vehicle for viewing bears safe. The photos and documentaries have attracted tourists, who spend $5,000 (€4,525) a visit on average and millions of dollars overall.

Churchill now bills itself as the polar bear capital of the world, and although it has no stoplights, it features upscale restaurants and many independent hotels.

Climate change forces Churchill to adapt

If that ends, Churchill hopes to be ready.

The town promotes tourism for beluga whalesalthough those could be harmed as the entire Hudson Bay ecosystem, including the food the belugas eat, shifts to one normally found farther south.

It also highlights the prospects of visitors to see the northern lightsseeing birds they never see at home, and even trying dogsledding.

“By the time you lose the bear season. And we know that. Anyway, it’s just a matter of we’re going to have to adapt to that change“said Mike Spence, mayor since 1995. “You can’t shake it. You won’t get any points.”

Spence grew up with the military installation “and all of a sudden it closes and then all of a sudden you get the tourists, the abundance of wildlife and the Aurora. That’s where you take advantage of it. You fix things and make life better.”

The closed port and the damaged railroad tracks? The town took them and ran again. Land subsidence because the weather is rainy and permafrost is melted? New buildings like those of Polar Bears International, a nonprofit conservation organization headquartered in the city, have metal jacks that can be fixed when a corner sinks about half a foot in five years.

‘A unique example of a city planning ahead’

Lauren Sorkin, executive director of the Resilient Cities Network, said that every city should have a plan to adapt to climate changeimpact on the economy and tourism.

“Churchill is an outstanding example of a city that is planning ahead to protect communities and preserve our natural environment and its biodiversity,” he said.

Spence, who is Cree, grew up without electricity or running water in ‘flats’ on the outskirts of town, run by a white minority. Churchill is about two-thirds Native including Cree, Metis, Inuit and Dene. Spence remembers his father saying that if only he could speak English better he could tell the officials how to organize the town.

“I think I do that for him,” Spence said. “You don’t just say ‘I have a problem.’ Go there to fix it.”

Rainfall caused by climate change has hit Churchill’s transport systems

You can’t drive in Churchill. Food, people, cargo, everything gets there railwayboats or planes. Rail is the cheapest, and most residents travel by overnight train to Thompson, then drive south from there.

Until a few years ago the railroad tracks, leased to a private company, were not properly maintained and the wet, stormy spring of 2017 created 22 washouts of the line between Churchill and points south , Spence said. The company cannot fix them.

Big storms in Churchill are 30 percent rainier than 80 years ago because of human-induced climate change, Cornell University climate scientist Angie Pendergrass said.

“The service was at a standstill” for 18 months, Spence recalled. “It’s just devastating.”

Meanwhile, not enough goods were arriving at the old port. Spence said the shipping hub and rail lines needed to operate as an integrated system, and not be run by an absentee US owner, so the town negotiated with the federal and provincial governments for local federal control and financial assistance.

As of 2018, the Arctic Gateway Group, a partnership of 41 First Nations and northern communities, owns the port and rail line. Railroad service returned on Halloween that year. Manitoba officials say that in the last two years 610 kilometers of track have been upgraded and 10 bridges repaired. Shipping at the port will more than triple from 2021, including the return of its first cruise ship in the decade, they say.

Earlier this year, officials announced another $60 million (€54.3m) in port and rail funding.

How indigenous residents are forging a brighter future for Churchill

Local ownership is key to Churchill, said former Chamber of Commerce president Dave Daley, who left town in the 1980s but returned five years later because he and his wife missed it. One time the big hotel chains came around and said they could fix the town’s infrastructure and build something big.

“We all stood up and said ‘no’,” Daley said. “We’re a tight-knit group. We have different opinions and everything else but we know what we want Churchill to be.

As Churchill develops, its forgotten past sometimes surfaces as tourists ask about residents and their history, said longtime resident Georgina Berg, who like Spence lived in the flats as a child. That past includes “not so happy stories” of forced migration, missing women, poverty, hunting for a living, being ignored, death and abuse, said Berg, who is Cree.

Daley, a dogsled racer and president of Indigenous Tourism Manitoba, tells how the Metis people have been especially ignored, abused and punished, but he ends the history lesson with an abrupt twist.

“We can’t change five minutes ago, but we can change five minutes from now,” Daley said. “So that’s what I teach my children. You know it’s fun to know the history and all the atrocities and everything that happened, but if we’re going to improve that, we have to look forward and look five minutes from now and what we can do to change that.”

Meanwhile, Daley and Spence noticed changes in the period – not only warmer, but they thunder here, something that was once unimaginable. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world. Although Churchill is not as bad as it is south of the Arctic Circle, “it’s something we take very seriously”, Spence said.

“It’s a matter of finding the right blend in how you fit in climate change,” Spence said. “And work with it.”