Canadian Town, Isolated After Losing Rail Link, ‘Feels Held Hostage’

The last train to Churchill sits beside the town’s antique station, settling into place week after week.

It arrived on May 23, the morning when floods washed out the track connecting this frontier town in northern Manitoba on the edge of Hudson Bay — and it hasn’t moved since.

Once a symbol of expansion and hope, the passenger train has become a painful emblem of lost jobs, empty hotel rooms and mounting hunger for the town’s residents, and a bellwether of climate change for scientists.

Notoriously high to begin with, the price of groceries in Churchill has skyrocketed as supplies now arrive by plane. Even with emergency government subsidies in place, a four-liter jug of milk that once cost 6.19 Canadian dollars, or nearly $5, now rings in at 10.89. Two small bags of produce, containing just fruit, snap peas and beans, cost 82.99.