Nickel Belt News Winter weather testing body signs agreements with federal government and a college

BY IAN GRAHAM EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

SubZero North, the organization that facilitates and promotes winter weather testing in and around Thompson, signed memorandums of understanding with the federal government and an Ontario college at the cold weather campus by the airport on Jan. 24.

was initially a one-off collaboration, the memorandum began when the Innovation Centre came to Thompson in 2022.

forward thinking, and Churchill-Keewatinook Aski MP Niki Ashton.

“The first seeds of this were really planted in February last year,” Robbins says. “We came out here for what we thought might have been a one-and-done collaboration, but just found it was an excellent environment to work in so we just kept on coming.”

BY IAN GRAHAM EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

Though she’s now written a book about her experiences growing up in Churchill, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles said writing wasn’t something she always thought she would do.

Established by the Thompson Community Development Corporation with support from other economic development organizations like Communities Economic Development Fund and Community Futures North Central Development, SubZero entered into MOUs with Transport Canada’s Innovation Centre and with Mohawk College, which had an instructor in Thompson over the past two weeks training northerners to become certified drone operators.

“It solidifies and establishes what we've been doing a little bit more ad hoc over the last year or so,” said Mark Robbins, manager of venture projects at the Innovation Centre — “basically the research and development branch.”

Springing from what

“In my youth I never felt good at writing,” she said. “But when I moved to Thompson to get into the school of social work, at that point I had to write for university and realized, ‘Holy, I’m not bad at this, right?’ I certainly developed a lot of skill in university and came out of there with a very strong skill in my writing and confidence in my writing. I write very clear and that’s it. It’s there. Some people say it’s kind of blunt or direct. I don’t tend to write things that you have to figure out. It’s pretty clear when I get through.”

DeMeulles said she wrote her book, titled Whispers in the Wind: Stories from the North - Life in Churchill for a couple of reasons.

Establishing a formal understanding should help ensure continuity should the faces of the Innovation Centre and SubZero north change, Robbins say, creating a structure that will outlast any one individual in the two organizations.

Curtis Ross, Thompson Regional Airport Authority CEO and long-time partner in Thompson cold weather testing with Honda, said establishing more partnerships bodes well for the future of the Thompson winter weather testing campus adjacent to the airport terminal, which was purchased from Ford and local Ford dealership owners the Kelleher family at the tail end of last year, with the airport authority taking possession of the facilities in December.

‘Oh, I’m just as bad, right?’ I have all these stories and I need to capture them for my grandchildren really because they will be lost if I don’t.” was not a very safe thing to do but I jumped at it. I thought that was exciting until the plane landed and they started throwing the fuel off and I realized, ‘Holy cats, I was probably sitting on a bomb.’” swallow when people say that Churchill residents should just find somewhere easier to live.

Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles has written a book about her experiences growing up, mostly in Churchill.

She also has a reputation as a storyteller herself.

“The federal government is a key partner when it comes to pushing forward opportunities for our work relating to our climate,” she said, noting that Northern Manitoba has the infrastructure and human resources to support the industry and is also close to the front lines of climate change, which affects northern regions in various ways that present challenge and opportunities.

The other memorandum is with Mohawk College and was signed by professor Richard Borger, who was in town training two Thompsonites as certified drone operators.

“This is actually a really big growth opportunity for us at the college to be extending to the northern testing world,” said Borger. “Thank you very much for entertaining this and working with us on this relationship together and we’re looking forward to working together.”

“I just sort of thought, you know what, this history, this stuff that’s in my head, it’s going to be gone if I don’t write it down,” she said. “My kids are not going to get it if I don’t do it and it’s something I’ve always wanted my mom to do. My mom’s an elder and she’s an artist, she’s got so many wonderful stories because she always tells her stories at Parks Canada in Churchill and I’ve always hounded her, ‘Please, just put it on tape, I will write it for you because your story is going to be lost,’ and she’s never done it and I thought,

“I've been in this business for a long time,” said Ross. “I continue to watch and be amazed to see it grow, to see things, partnerships being created. We believe in SubZero, the brand has a big brand in the city of Thompson. We hope to build on that brand. Congratulations to all of you because none of this gets done in isolation. This is a team effort. So congratulations and we look forward to the continued cooperation from all from all entities.”

“I had such a varied history and I would tell people stories and they would go, ‘That’s not true, is it?’ I’d go, ‘Yeah it’s true.’ They’d go, ‘You didn’t do all that, did you? You’ve got to be really old.’ I was like, ‘No, actually I did all that before I was 27,’ and they went ‘What?’”

Looking back, some of those experiences are things she might not do again.

Developing the MOUs was also praised by Thompson elected representatives including Mayor Colleen Smook, who lauded the parties’

“I did some pretty bizarre stuff like fuel hauls into the high Arctic at -35,” said deMeulles. “It didn’t dawn on me until after. That was a very dangerous thing to do. Being on a plane full of fuel

Another thing that spurred her on was the hard times facing Churchill since the Hudson Bay Railway suspended operations north of Gillam last spring.

“It used to be a really thriving large community and it’s just dwindled down to such a small population now,” deMeulles says.

Laura Finlay of Community Futures North Central Development says that although the winter weather testing industry in Thompson is long-established when it comes to vehicles, whether it’s snowmobiles, cars and trucks, or jet engines like those that are tested at GLACIER’s facility south of town, new technologies present new opportunities and further opportunities for expanding the local winter testing industry.

Though she’s not there any longer, her parents and her sister and other family members still are.

“To say, ‘Those people choose to live there. They should just leave,’ is quite

For all the harsh weather and the dangers of polar bears, deMeulles said if it had been viable she would have moved back to Churchill in a heartbeat.

“I miss the shoreline, I miss the rock, I miss the polar bears even though they’re very dangerous and I really miss the Hudson Bay,” she says. “When I go back home, standing on the Hudson Bay looking out on the bay, it just gives you an incredible sense. You feel so

Now that she’s got one book under her belt, deMeulles says she may try

“The main focus for SubZero really is the real world testing,” she said. “There's a whole world out there — new tech — that needs testing.”

“My cousin owns the hardware store there,” she says.

Because of that, deMeulles finds it hard to said, ‘I’m sorry, you have to leave your home community and we’re going to displace you somewhere else and all your loved ones and your history is gone?’”

“I have another book in me,” she says. “It’s a darker story, more about personal growth and struggles. Maybe in the next five years it’s something I’ll focus on doing.”