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 The
town of Churchill Manitoba is known as
the “Polar Bear Capital of the World”.
It is nestled on the Western shore of Hudson Bay about
650 miles north of Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. Every
autumn, polar
bears gather along the water’s edge near the town,
anxiously waiting for the sea ice to form. Once the bay
freezes over, the bears move out onto the ice where they
spend the winter hunting seal.
 The
Churchill region is home to some of the most outstanding
natural phenomena, including up to 44 species of mammals
such as polar bears, beluga whales, caribou, fox, hare
and four species of seal. Churchill is also a bird
watcher's paradise, with close to two hundred species of
birds, including ptarmigan, peregrine falcons, arctic
terns, ducks, loons and Ross's gulls. Wild flowers,
lichen covered rocks and trees dot the tundra landscape.
At night, the skies over Churchill are lit up by a
multitude of stars as well as the highest intensity of
the northern lights in the arctic region. During cold
winter days, the sun shines through ice crystals,
producing sundogs.
 The
first Europeans arrived in Churchill in the late 17th
Century, and the first permanent settlement was a log
fort built by the Hudson's Bay company to capitalize on
the fur-trading network. Before then, the area was
populated by the Inuit, Chippewa and Cree nations.
Churchill received it's name from John Churchill, the governor of the
Hudson's Bay Company at the time, and ancestor of
Winston Churchill.
In 1782, the Fort was destroyed by French warships
and rebuilt slightly upriver. The fur trade eventually
declined and the Western governments forced a railway to
be built linking Winnipeg to Churchill. It was 1929
before the Hudson Bay Railway was completed. This
railway is the only link from Hudson Bay to the rest of
Canada.
 Several
national historic sites are in the area, including
Prince of Wales Fort, Sloop Cove, Cape Merry Battery and
York Factory. Wapusk National Park is also nearby - it
is a wildlife sanctuary and one of the world's
largest-known polar bear maternity denning areas.
Information on all of these sites can be obtained from
Parks Canada, and there is information about each one at
the Churchill
train station.
During the 2001 census, there were 963 people living
in Churchill.
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