A port in Far northern Canada?

I've been wondering if the southernmost part of the hudson bay could support a port of fairly large magnitude. The town/village I see on there is fort albany which I'm guessing isn't that populous and it's probably becuase the St. Lawrence handles any and all traffic going through canada.

So lets say, in the 1830's or so upper and lower Canada decides to go republic or accept statehood in the US of A. The hudson bay company is gonna stay british but it just lost it's biggest connection to the sea, could Fort Albany or another town around or like it fill that space and give the "Canadian West" or Rupertsland a connection to the atlantic and if so what kind of population could that northern hudson bay port hold?
 
Okay, but how large is it and was it settled before 1900?

It's gotta be a large port, I'm talking in excess of 500,000 people could live there and it could support a transcontinental railroad.
 
Okay, but how large is it and was it settled before 1900?

Population is about 1000 and it's been there in one form or another since the 1700's where there was a fort there. And it's been linked by railway to the rest of Canada since the 1920's.

It's gotta be a large port, I'm talking in excess of 500,000 people could live there and it could support a transcontinental railroad.

Er...have you seen where it's located? The place is called the Polar Bear Capital of the World for a reason, you know. How can someplace that's on the edge of the tundra support half a million people? Hell--the population of the entire province of Manitoba is something like only 1 million.

http://www.portofchurchill.ca/


Why the half million significance? :confused:
 
I'm not talking about Churchill specifically, you know. And half mil is just a ball park estimate. I want to see a big rupertsland that could support a large population. Without a large port, not a town of a thousand, Rupertsland can't really be a viable independent state.

Could the Hudson Bay area support a large population?
 
Have some kind of religion start in some other part of North America, and have it eventually flee to northern Manitoba and elsewhere, escaping persecution. This will make the population jump up there - although I don't think there could be THAT much population density, so you'd have to see a rather large territory, perhaps from Hudson Bay to Lake Athabasca, and maybe up to the Great Slave Lake, too. Something like that. A northern Deseret, with crazy Mormon analogues. No matter whether or not they remain independent, the religion will stick around, and they will be up north, with a lot more people. What is Churchill will become the centre of the world for this religion.

Hell, if you could think of a way to do it, they could even BE Mormons. North instead of west?

It's a crazy idea, but a) Churchill as a huge port is a crazy idea, and b) Deseret is a real world crazy idea.
 
i am sure the area could support a higher amount of people than it currently does, although the maximum limit would probably be well below 500,000.

Hudson Bay does freeze over. not entirely, but it does get blocked from the Arctic (http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/misc/modis/hudson_bay/hudson_bay_freeze_anim.html), so you would only be able to use this port during the summer, and part of the spring and fall each year, making it not a very effective port. :(

i could see a city of maybe 25-50,000 people thriving here without too much of a stretch. maybe if there would be a center of heavy industry and a more developed transportation nexus you could stretch it to ~75,000, but any more would probably be pushing it. the surrounding area isn't good for massive agriculture, so if you have too much of a food requirement, then you have to import more, on top of all the things you already would need.
 

Philip

Donor
It's gotta be a large port, I'm talking in excess of 500,000 people could live there and it could support a transcontinental railroad.

Unless you are counting caribou, I think this population is way too high. If we look for possible OTL analogues, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk come to mind. Despite having the much larger Russian population to draw upon, neither of the far north ports meet your requirements. Anchorage is even further off the mark.
 
Unless you are counting caribou, I think this population is way too high. If we look for possible OTL analogues, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk come to mind. Despite having the much larger Russian population to draw upon, neither of the far north ports meet your requirements. Anchorage is even further off the mark.

Ok, I get it. 100,000 people or anything approaching a medium metropolitan area. So could it happen?
 
i am sure the area could support a higher amount of people than it currently does, although the maximum limit would probably be well below 500,000.

Hudson Bay does freeze over. not entirely, but it does get blocked from the Arctic (http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/misc/modis/hudson_bay/hudson_bay_freeze_anim.html), so you would only be able to use this port during the summer, and part of the spring and fall each year, making it not a very effective port. :(

i could see a city of maybe 25-50,000 people thriving here without too much of a stretch. maybe if there would be a center of heavy industry and a more developed transportation nexus you could stretch it to ~75,000, but any more would probably be pushing it. the surrounding area isn't good for massive agriculture, so if you have too much of a food requirement, then you have to import more, on top of all the things you already would need.

Ah that's a pretty good estimate. But how would a rupertsland like this develop?
 
I think Harper's actually planning on upgrading one of our real arctic ports to deep-water status, to enforce our control of the 'Passage.

So maybe a warmer (ie, ice-free) NW Passage, so the brits (or somebody) builds some ports up in the islands? You'd still have a hard time getting them big, but you could up the population by an order of magnitude and have some real towns easy.
 
Well, with a POD before the year 2000, virtually impossible because of ice. However, with the advent of Global Warming and the Northwest Passage, a year-round Arctic port is now a possibility. The only question now is whether the ships will go via Canada, or via Russia.
 
actually...i was thinking (dangerous right? lol)

if you have a group of dedicated ice breakers, you could possibly keep the james and hudson bays open all winter long. it would be very expensive, but if canada had no other choice, than it is possible. then, you could operate it year round. i still don't see anything larger than maybe 100,000 people at the absolute maximum.
 
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