Churchill-to-Europe

Out of the bleak little port of Churchill, Manitoba, on the west side of Hudson Bay last week churned the freighter Firby, bound for England with six passengers, a cargo of wheat, flour, timber. The first ship to clear Churchill this year, the Firby was also the first to carry passengers to Europe under an organized booking service. In the past, passengers have occasionally been taken, usually listed as crew. The new arrangement is the latest Canadian effort to make a paying proposition out of Churchill, which was developed as a port five years ago at tremendous cost, has so far proved a failure.

For ten months of the year Churchill is icebound, snow-laden. Sole reason for making it a port was to reduce Western Canadian wheat-growers' freight rates to Europe. Churchill, at latitude 59DEG, is no farther from Liverpool than are Montreal and New York, both of which are twice as far from the Saskatchewan wheat fields. For 50 years Canadian wheatmen agitated for a railroad over the frozen muskeg to Churchill. In 1931 they got it, at a cost of some $30,000,000, in the form of a 510 mile spin from The Pas, Manitoba, prime junction on the Canadian National Railways. Another $25,000,000 went toward fitting up Churchill as a port, building a 2,500,000-bu. grain elevator (TIME, Sept. 24, 1931).

Last year only six freighters visited Churchill. The five-year average of grain exported is a mere 3,000,000 bu. The town, itself, once planned to become a metropolis, remains a huddle of shacks on the naked shingle beside the Bay. The Hudson Bay Railroad runs but one train a week.

This year promises to be Churchill's best by a small margin. Eight ships carrying freight alone, seven more also carrying passengers are scheduled to sail before the freeze-over about Sept. 30. Costing $70 per ticket, the voyage takes from 14 to 20 days, offers a view of a part of the world where few besides explorers have been. According to the booking agent, last week's six tourists--four from Vancouver, two from Regina--were merely "curiosity seekers."

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