Three dozen travellers from several provinces were the first group tour to make a summer journey to Churchill in three years as June turned to July.
Participants in a Winnipeg to Churchill package organized by Rail Travel Tours made a brief stopover in Thompson as they headed north on June 29 and passed through the city southbound July 3 after spending Canada Day in the Northern Manitoba port town.
Clinton McGinnis, who lives in Ontario, said June 29 that the trip was his third to the shores of Hudson Bay and first in eight years.
“I think every Canadian should make a trip up there,” said McGinnis, adding that he hasn’t seen everything there is to see in Churchill yet. “I haven’t seen the rocket launch area yet.”
He also said that the train trip from Winnipeg is an integral part of the experience.
“Rail is the most relaxing, pleasurable way to travel,” McGinnis said. “I flew up one time and always go by rail from now on.”
At the other end of the spectrum was Enid Kaminski from Winnipeg, who said making a trip to Manitoba’s seaport is something she wanted to cross off her bucket list. Unfortunately the start of her retirement coincided with the arrival of COVID-19 in Manitoba so she had to wait longer than she otherwise might.
“It’s time to go now with COVID being mostly lifted,” she said.
Kaminski said the train ride takes a little getting used to but that she slept the previous night with the curtains open.
“I wanted to experience that because we’re only a week after the summer solstice,” she said, adding that she planned to take a Canada Day dip in Hudson Bay while in Churchill.
And although the trip from Winnipeg to Churchill, particularly along the Hudson Bay Railway section from The Pas north, often requires the engineer to slow down because of track conditions, Kaminski said she wished it was even lower speed.
“When you’re trying to look at things, it still goes by pretty fast,” she said.
Daryl Adair of Rail Travel Tours said this trip to Churchill is different from many others the company did prior to the pandemic.
“It’s more anxiety dealing with an endemic and other procedures so it’s stressful, worrisome,” he said.
It was also difficult to convince Via Rail to accommodate a group tour.
“Like everywhere else right now they’re dealing with their challenges of restarting tourism so they were not terribly keen to find us the passenger car space,” Adair said. “It always seems that in Manitoba this train comes second.”
However, Rail Travel Tours was able to persuade them to make sure the group tour could go ahead.
“We’ve pushed and we’ve been very consistent. They were not sure if they’d have the equipment. They’re really taking care of us on board and doing some really great things.”
That said, Adair is unsure what the future holds for such tours.
“We’re not happy with some things they told us about not encouraging groups to go on this train,” he said, adding that it’s not only good for Rail Travel Tours if group tours are possible, but also for the communities the train stops in. “We know how much business and tourism we’re going to do for communities like Thompson and Churchill so were going to persistently keep bringing our groups.”
