Port, rail firm ponders Kivalliq sealift business

Kivalliq sealift customers could have a new marine shipping option in time for next season.

Omnitrax, the company that owns the Port of Churchill, is looking for a marine company to partner with on a new sealift service to the Kivalliq through northern Manitoba.

“We’d love it if there was an Inuit birthright company that would want to do the service,” Mike Ogborn, Omnitrax’s managing director, said in an interview from his company’s head office in Denver, Colorado.

The company has already launched a new service that simplifies prices and delivery to the dock in Churchill by truck from Winnipeg and then by rail from either The Pas or Thompson.

But Omnitrax wants to get into the sealift business in time for next year’s shipping season, Ogborn said.

By shipping cargo to Churchill by rail and marshalling it less than 160 kilometres from Arviat near the Nunavut border, Ogborn said his company could start shipping earlier in the season, depending on ice conditions.

“We had merchandise on the dock in June last year,” he said.

“We plan to A) start earlier in the season, and B) have more timely deliveries.”

In a news release, Rankin Inlet mayor John Hickes said earlier sailings from Churchill would allow the hamlet to “start our construction season much earlier that we’ve been able to the past few years.”

The main Kivalliq sealift provider, NTCL, suffered a miserable season last year, when one of its barges failed a Transport Canada inspection, snarling the delivery process and resulting in some shipments arriving more than a month late.

The delays led to barren store shelves and complaints from customers in the Kivalliq region.

“There was great unhappiness with the delivery into Nunavut this year,” Ogborn said.