A ship is set to leave the Port of Churchill this week loaded with what would be the northern Manitoba town’s first grain shipment in over half a decade.

A ship loaded with about 30,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat will leave for Europe this week in what government officials say is a significant milestone years in the making.

“What we’re witnessing is the return of Churchill as a vital northern gateway connecting the Prairies, the Arctic to the rest of the world,” Northern Affairs Minister and Churchill-Keewatinook Aski member of Parliament Rebecca Chartrand said during a ceremony at the port Monday.

Shipments out of Churchill — Canada’s only railway-accessible deep-water arctic port — were halted after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the last grain shipment leaving Churchill in 2020.

Port owner Arctic Gateway Group — which also owns the Hudson Bay Railway — announced in July that grain shipments would resume this summer.

This week’s surge in activity at the port comes amid some hope its four-month shipping season could be extended.

A series of studies commissioned by Arctic Gateway released earlier this month suggested year-round shipping without the use of the most expensive icebreakers could be feasible as sea ice melts.

Chartrand said investing in the port will help Canada reach more markets amid dramatic changes in global trade — and the country’s relationship to the U.S.

“The U.S. has fundamentally altered its trading relationships, and its demands of Canada have gone way too far,” she said.

“We’re building strength at home, we’re investing in Canadian infrastructure and expanding trade so that our economy is not dependent on any single market.”

1st potash shipment leaving this week

Arctic Gateway — a consortium of northern and First Nation communities — says the port on Hudson Bay will see its most diversified shipping season in history this year, with another vessel loading zinc concentrate and the Churchill’s first-ever potash shipment this week.

The port is also loading a northern resupply vessel bound for Nunavut, the group said.

“This was an asset that had been neglected for decades, ironically by American interest,” CEO Chris Avery said, referring to previous owner Omnitrax. That Denver-based company shut down the port in 2016 as the railway fell into disrepair.

Shipments resumed in 2019 after Arctic Gateway took over the port, before the pandemic suspended them again.

“[We] had the foresight to say ‘Enough is enough … we’re going to take control of this infrastructure,'” Avery said.

“‘We’re going to take control as Canadians and as northern Manitobans and as First Nations — and what great foresight that was.”

This week’s grain shipment bound for Antwerp, Belgium, is one of three leaving the port this season in partnership with Saskatchewan-based pulse producer AGT Foods.