An economic development agency in northeast Saskatchewan wants to get regular grain shipments moving through Churchill once again.

The Arctic Gateway Group, which owns the port and the lengthy Hudson Bay Railway, has signed a five-year memorandum of understanding with Invest Tisdale to develop new business opportunities.

It has been several years since any grain moved through the northern Manitoba port, due to the poor condition of the Hudson Bay Railway. At one time, Churchill was used by the former Canadian Wheat Board to move cereal grains to certain export customers. Large privately owned grain companies have shied away from Churchill because they already own terminal facilities at Vancouver and/or Thunder Bay.

The Arctic Gateway Group involves 41 First Nations from northern Manitoba that rely on the port to deliver much needed goods and services. It wants to expand on that base, noting that Churchill offers a shorter and more direct route to European and African markets.

Connecting Tisdale to the Hudson Bay Railway will require some effort. The Arctic Gateway Group’s railway runs from Churchill to the Pas, Manitoba. CN Rail has a line between Hudson Bay and the Pas, but the main issue is the 100 kilometer Tisdale Rail Subdivision that connects to Hudson Bay to Crooked River, which is just east of Tisdale. That railway needs to be restored and repaired.

Chris Hudyma, the economic development officer at Invest Tisdale, says the first step is getting some grain through Churchill via the Pas, Manitoba. That won’t happen until next year, and for now the grain will be moved by truck.

“The end goal is to create jobs and more small business,” said Hudyma who has spent some time at Churchill and talked about the progress being made by the Arctic Gateway Group. “The railroad that has gone through a lot of upgrades the last number of years is near completion, so that makes it exciting for us. I was up there this year and they moved some zinc concentrate and its close to tidewater for us. The quicker we can move product out to tidewater, the cheaper the freight to get to the customer is, and it’s both the farmer and the customer can win on this one.”

In addition to grain, Hudyma says there are many other opportunities for exports from northeast Saskatchewan from lumber to metals and minerals, such as lithium and aluminium. “We’re sitting in a pretty good area of the province right now that’s just waiting to be developed and we need rail – rail will be critical to this and this will help move us forward in the future.”

He says backhauling fertilizer is another future possibility, citing a two-year-old study they did. “Right now we have to go through the Port of New Orleans. We did an economic impact assessment to see whether this is viable or not. Basically it indicated if we were to bring phosphate in for an example through the Port of Churchill into Tisdale for blending, we could save our farmers $25-million at the farmgate.”

Hudyma says Tisdale has the potential to be home to value-added processing and cites Yorkton as a success story. “How they’ve done things down there between the transportation, the water, and the power, very much I see the northeast. One of the key areas right now is getting that line up-and-running again – it’s going to take a few years but if we take our time with it, no major rush, let’s do it well and let’s create local jobs.”

Both parties will work to restore two-way rail traffic between Churchill and Tisdale.

(CJWW)