Saturday, August 14, 2021
We had a 9 a.m. flight from Winnipeg to Churchill, Manitoba, after having flown from Toronto to Winnipeg the day prior. Churchill is serviced by a regional airline called Calm Air. Flying the Winnipeg-Churchill route is actually an extremely efficient use of Air Miles.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to book an Air Miles fare, because we only booked a couple of months before traveling (due to the Covid pandemic and needing to ensure we received vaccinations prior to the trip).
The flight to Churchill has one stop along the way, in Thompson, Manitoba. We were on the ground much longer than expected in Thompson due to issues the airline had with loading cargo. As a result, we were nearly an hour late arriving into Churchill, and had to wait a few minutes for our hotel minibus shuttle to pick us up.
We checked into our accommodations at the Polar Inn and then headed out for a walk around town.
“Town” has about 700 inhabitants, so this did not take long. It was a gorgeous day, perhaps 16C and sunny – weather we wouldn’t really see again for the rest of the week.
We started out at the Northern Store, where we picked up some grocery items to keep in our kitchenette, and also noted that one may purchase an ATV or snowmobile at the same store. Prices were several times higher than what we are accustomed to paying at home, given that all the goods must be brought in by air or rail.
Following that, we toured many of the town’s outdoor art murals, part of an initiative started in 2017 called SeaWalls CHURCHILL.
And we also wandered down to the waterfront to see Hudson Bay.
The beach is safe to visit, but there were warnings not to stray into the rocky areas along the shoreline – that terrain is prime polar bear territory.
We went to the Tundra Inn for dinner, and it was pizza night, so we ordered several pizzas and took them back to our room to eat.
After dinner, we watched a movie and played a few rounds of Boggle before going to bed relatively early, tired from our travel day. We did check several times for the Northern Lights, but some clouds and rain were already starting to move in.
Cook Family Travels 