Churchill - Day 3

Aug 6th

Churchill - Day 3

Okay woke to this creaking bed and just had to video it!

Starting our first tour of Churchill and area with Koral who is known as the best guide here and even Internationally guiding too!

Koral, she is a tour guide here, elsewhere in Canada and even Internationally!!!

Tour #1 - Churchill and Area - part 1

OMGG our first tour was of Churchill and area and all I can say is Koral was an AWESOME tour guide/bus driver! There's more to Churchill than just the port! The awesome large murals painted atound town etc are incredible! The spongy ground cover was weird to walk on. The defunct and just about returned to it's original state HMSC Navy Base and older garbage dump way out of town. Even some cottagers set up way out from the town limits but naturally need a gun when going outside as it's way out of town limits that are patrolled. Some names will be added in once I find them!

A huge Snowy Owl and this is 30x magnification!   WOW!!!  Koral said it was huge and we were very lucky to see it!  And I spotted it!

Port of Churchill Elevator 

Port Staff House not in use now, wall mural left side. 

Jockville, a small seasonal suburb built by port employees in the 1920s.

Erected on Centennial Road 1967.

That blob is the back of a Beluga whale, we saw lots from land.

More belugas.

We got out here and explored.

The New Battery (early 1900s) with Prince of Wales Fort across the Churchill River. 

Rock Cairn foreground and the Old Battery in back!

The New Battery

Prince of Wales Fort- Churchill River 

Rocky land outside the New Battery 

Churchill Marine Observatory funded by U of M.

Former Port Staff House, right side of 3D mural.

The Stone Wall was last worked on in 2005, intentions of using local rocks for a B&B.

Tour #1 - Churchill and Area - part 2

The one sidedWhite Spruce trees a part of the artic marine ecosystem. 

Three types of berries here - these are Bearberries

To me this looks like Mama bear in back and cub in front.

Them dang winds, poor windflagged White Spruce!

Crowberries

Artic Cottonend of season

Artic Cotton in bloom, like a daisy.

Rocks covered with slow growing orange lichen.

They called it the Curtiss Calamity, Ol' Dumbo, the Flying Whale and, more recently, Miss Piggy.   Curtiss C-46 "Commando" twin-prop cargo aircraft that had to do a forced land.

Polar Bear snare trap not used anymore.

Current bear traps used and contained till ice forms or helicopter lifted 50-70 kms away and released.

And lots of bear traps.

The Polar Bear Jail

Rock crushing plant for gravel for rail beds.

This abandoned building overlooking Hudson Bay near Churchill was a radar station in the 1960s, used to track launches from the nearby rocket range.  It's exterior was painted in 2017 as part of a publication program.

SS Ithaca - shortly after leaving port on 14 September 1960, bound for Rankin Inlet with a cargo of electrical generators and plywood, it's rudder broke in an eighty-mile-an-hour gale and it ran aground.

It was a full 4 hour tour, no rushing as we didn't have another tour, so we just took our time. Got back 4:30 and told the bus was picking us up 5 for the Legion chili supper. Ohhhh noooo, not tomato sauce again!!! So Sylvia and I stayed at the Churchill Hotel and had a shared cod fish n chips with a small garden salad each, mucho better! Didn't matter we paid for it! Delicious!