You won’t hear Mayor Michael Spence complaining about climate change even as global warming threatens one of the main industries in his Arctic town of Churchill.

Once hailed as the “polar bear capital of the world,” the town of Churchill, Manitoba, is facing an uncertain future as climate change threatens to drive away the photogenic animals - and with them, the legions of world tourists that used to flock to the tiny hamlet on the shores of Hudson Bay.

But Spence hopes his community of 1,100 people will one day turn into a thriving port city, with a bit of help from global warming.

“Climate change is something we may not be able to stop,” Spence said in a telephone interview from Churchill. “So we’re trying to find a positive side to it. Climate change will ... create an opportunity for the North to develop.”

Spence’s hopes centre on the fact that the choppy waters of Hudson Bay are still remarkably ice-free in mid-November - a phenomenon, along with other evidence, that will be on the agenda of world governments as they meet to discuss the Kyoto Protocol on global warming in December in Bali, Indonesia.

The treaty expires in 2012, and what comes after is on the agenda of the gathering.
The absence of ice this late in the season is bad news for polar bears, but good news for Michael Ogborn, managing director of Colorado-based Omnitrax, a transportation services company and the largest privately-held rail services company in North America.

Omnitrax bought the decrepit Churchill port and the rail line leading to it 10 years ago for less than a pittance $7 and a promise to invest in the infrastructure.

The purchase raised some sceptical eyebrows. A thick layer of ice bound the port for most of the year; Churchill had no import traffic, and its outbound traffic - mostly shipping wheat and other bulk agricultural products from Canadian prairies - was losing money.

But a combination of shrewd business practices and climate change have turned things around.

“We’ve have been actively marketing the port,” Ogborn said.

“And climate change has extended the shipping season by at least a couple of weeks. The port is now open from June to mid-November.”This year the Port of Churchill marked a few important landmarks, Ogborn said. Outbound shipments through Churchill surpassed 600,000 tons in 2007. The company is aiming at 1 million tons of outbound traffic in 2008.

“In 2007, we had the first domestic shipment of wheat from Churchill to Halifax,” Ogborn said.In mid-October the port received a welcome foreign guest - the Kapitan Sviridov with a shipment of Russian fertilizer destined for sale to north American farmers.

This was the first time the port accepted imports from Russia, Ogborn said.Developing ties with Russia is one of the major strategies to grow the Port of Churchill, Ogborn said.

Although it isn’t obvious without looking at a globe, Russia’s northernmost port of Murmansk is much closer to Churchill than to any other major Canadian or American port.
Russians too are keen to develop the Murmansk-Churchill bridge.

Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin visited Ottawa in January to urge Canadian officials to move forward with plans to expand Churchill.

Russia has even offered the use of seven modern icebreakers in the hope that the “Arctic bridge” could stay open year-round. The route from Murmansk to Churchill and from there by rail to central Canada and the US cuts anywhere from eight to 11 days off the traditional route through the St Lawrence Seaway into the Great Lakes, Ogborn said.

“And time is money,” he added.Unlike the Northwest Passage, there are no international disputes over its status to hamper the development of the route, said professor Rob Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

He noted however that the port and especially the rail line need major investments.

Paradoxically, the same climate change forces that are opening up Churchill have wrought havoc on the rail line that connects it to the rest of Canada. In places, the rail line has sunk into the melting tundra permafrost.Huebert said the Canadian government is finally starting to clue in to the strategic importance of Churchill. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pledged to invest 28 million dollars, along with the province of Manitoba, in rail line improvements and the port.Omnitrax is contributing another $20 million. Mayor Spence in the meantime hopes that an extended summer tourist season will bring more southerners to marvel at the other mammalian symbol of Churchill - the beluga whales.- DPA