Just Deserts!!! Timbuctu to Churchill

Sand to snow, hot to cold... it's all the same when you reach the end of the road....

As i wandered the barren landscape of the town of Churchill, passing the utilitarian, greyish, box like buildings, and dozens of identical fading government built town houses, I was reminded of where i was last year at this time.... Timbuctu, wandering the sand filled streets, past box like almost identical small buildings whose ochre colour matched the sand they are built on.

There are amazing similarities to these two cities at the end of their respective roads.... Churchill's road ends on the shore of Hudson Bay, Timbuctu's on the edge of the Sahara desert. They exist in austere, life limiting environments at opposite ends of the temperature scale from one another.

Both are dealing with diminishing populations and are coping with an increased tourist prescence
Access to both towns is difficult, time consuming and defies regular scheduling.

The stodgy, ancient river freight and passenger boat that plies the Niger struggles with seasonal shallow water when the ferry either cannot run, or gets stuck on sandbanks. THis echoes the problems of the train, the only access to churchill for freight, struggling with the shifting fragile tundra ground that buckles and distorts rail lines, especially in the summer. The riverboat stops running by December. The train dosen't make it to churchil 50% of the time in the summer, and probably shouldn't be running.

Cars, fridges, office furniture, food, clothes and supplies for the few stores that exist in these towns comes up either by train or river boat. Neither place has the capacity to feed itself.