Letters from Churchill, MB

An Introduction, by Brennan McCurry

Brennan McCurry is a second-year MDiv student at Huron University College. This summer, he is a Lay Pastor at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Churchill, Manitoba, where he also writes about his northern ministry experiences.

I went grocery shopping today in the Northern Store (the general/grocery store in Churchill) and on one hand it was a typical small rural town where it sells not only groceries, but office supplies, small home supplies like diapers and the like. However, on the other hand, there is the isolation of Churchill and living in northern Canada (Churchill for me is “northern”, but it may not be for people from other northern communities).

Looking through the different foods available, it quickly becomes clear that the loss of the train has impacted the community. While I do not know what prices were like with products being brought in by train; however, there are multiple shelves sitting close to or completely empty. To me, this indicates that the airplanes delivering products do not allow for all foods that once were in the store to continue to be delivered.

As I am sure you can guess, the fresh produce section is the most impacted portion of the store. The vast majority of lean shelves and almost exclusively the empty shelves are in this section as well the prices are truly frightening. A pack of four half cobs of corn is $5 and berries like blueberries and raspberries were close to $10 for a container.

Additionally, the butcher/meat section is priced much higher than stores I am used to in Southern Manitoba, I purchased nine fresh chicken thighs for $19. The extra costs in transportation even comes across in the boxed goods, where a package of Ramen noodles is a dollar and Kraft Dinner was on sale for three boxes for $8.

I have been up here for almost a week and I am still reeling from the disparity between food prices in Churchill and other towns to the south even in the same province.