A two-stage rocket departs for space on a clear day in Churchill. A rocket rises up in a blue sky over snowy ground with clusters of trees.
August 5, 2022

Top Flight: The Churchill Rocket Range

Top Flight: The Churchill Rocket Range

Posted on by Rebecca Watson

By Tamika Reid, Volunteer Researcher, and Roland Sawatzky, Curator of History, Manitoba Museum

Churchill, Manitoba is well known for its scenic arctic landscape, polar bears, and vibrant northern lights, but did you know that Churchill was once home to the most active rocket range in Canada?

While the Churchill Rocket Range was in regular operation, between 1957 and 1985, Churchill hosted an international array of scientists, technicians, students, contractors, and military personnel. Through their pioneering studies, Manitoba has a permanent place in the history of early rocket development, and research into the mysteries of the upper atmosphere and aurora borealis. This work enriched humanity’s understanding of the thin layer surrounding our fragile planet.

Ken Pilon worked at the Churchill Rocket Range in the early 1980s as a meteorologist, supporting winter launches by providing crucial wind and temperature information. The northern climate made blizzards and high surface wind speeds a concern for launch trajectory. Pilon worked with a team of up to 60 people. “The hours and working conditions were extreme at times, but I never heard a single complaint from any of them,” said Pilon.

A large, bright sphere in the night sky as a rocket is launched with clouds of smoke erupting down from it over the launch site. In the foreground are starkly lit trees on a snowy landscape.

An Aerobee rocket is launched in the darkness of winter, in February 1981. The glare of the fuel combustion casts stark shadows among the surrounding trees. Photo by Ken Pilon.

A rocket streaming up into the night sky with a bright tail behind it. In the dark blue night sky, light lines of aurora and stars are visible.

A two-stage rocket is launched into the Aurora. Both the first stage booster and the second-stage rocket ignition are visible. Photo by Ken Pilon. 

Low viewing platforms and ramps built into a snowy landscape looking towards two larger industrial buildings in the distance.

The Churchill Rocket Range, 1975. Photo by Ron Estler. 

A long plume of smoke rising straight up from the ground to high in a cloudy sky where a rocket launches upwards. On the ground, a pointy building surrounded by evergreen trees on a snowy landscape.

A recent episode of Dome@Home, a bi-weekly virtual program hosted by Planetarium Astronomer, Scott Young, featured Pilon’s artifacts and images. In response, a viewer from Colorado, Dr. Ron Estler, contacted the Museum and shared his experience as a graduate student at the Churchill Rocket Range, along with more photographs.

For six weeks in 1975, Estler was part of an Aerobee 150 rocket launch funded by NASA, through John Hopkins University. Studying Chemical Physics, Estler was tasked with overseeing electron spectrometers to be launched with the Aerobee, for analyzing the energy of electrons.

Having visited Churchill last March for the first time since working there as a student, Estler is already planning another trip north. On the way, he plans to visit the Manitoba Museum. “It will remind me that I played a very small role in something much bigger and fundamentally important to the knowledge of our own planet,” said Estler. 

The Manitoba Museum is planning a future exhibit on the Churchill Rocket Range to highlight stories like these, and the role of the Rocket Range in space and science research. You can see a Black Brant V, a type of rocket also used at the Churchill Rocket Range, in the Science Gallery at the Manitoba Museum.  

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Curator of History

Roland Sawatzky joined The Manitoba Museum in 2011. He received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Winnipeg, M.A. in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina, and Ph.D. in Archaeology…
Meet Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Secrets in Stone: Finding Fossils in Manitoba’s Limestones

Posted on by Rebecca Watson

By Dr. Graham Young
Past Curator of Geology and Paleontology

When you hear the word “fossil”, you probably think of giant dinosaurs, or perhaps marine reptiles such as Morden’s “Bruce”, but fossils actually include all evidence of past life. Fossils may be the remains of plants or animals, such as leaves or bones, and they also can be tracks or traces made by animals. Fossils tell us about the evolution of life, the age of rocks, and the environments of the distant past. 

For many Manitobans, the most familiar fossils are those in our beautiful limestones. On almost any block in Winnipeg you can see Tyndall Stone walls packed with fossils! Our limestones document the rise and fall of a series of warm, salty inland seas. Rocks from the Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian periods of geological time, about 450 to 380 million years old, hold varied remains: corals, brachiopods (lamp shells), cephalopods (relatives of squids), trilobites (relatives of crustaceans), and other groups. These can be seen near Manitoba’s Great Lakes, in the Grand Rapids Uplands, and across the Hudson Bay Lowland. 

View into a Museum diorama. Seafloor scene showing various corals, sponges, seaweeds, and sea creatures.

The Ordovician seafloor diorama depicts sea life in the Winnipeg area about 450 million years ago. Manitoba is a big place, a bit bigger than France, and much of it is still poorly known. Fossil-rich rocks occur in many parts of Manitoba, and new discoveries are made every year, by both professional and amateur paleontologists.

Two photographs, side-by-side. On the left a section of rock with a fossil in the centre, a rectangular outline chiselled around it. On the right, the same fossil, now prepared. The rock trimmed back, and the fossil more clearly revealed. The prepared fossil sits in a padded wooden box.

Part of the skull of a Devonian age fossil fish (about 390 million years old), as it was in the field (left) and after preparation at the Manitoba Museum (right). (MM-V-3184) 

Dr. Graham Young, wearing a red vest with a white pail beside him, kneels on a rocky shoreline in front of a pile of rocks, examining two thin pieces more closely. Further back to the right side of the photo another individual sits on a rock with a pail in front of them. In the background is open water.

Manitoba Museum staff collecting fossils from a site near Churchill that has yielded some of the world’s oldest horseshoe crabs.

Anyone searching for fossils should know that Manitoba’s heritage laws protect fossils and archaeological artifacts. If you plan to do serious collecting, you should apply for a provincial Heritage Permit. If you find a significant fossil in bedrock, and you do not have a permit, please consider taking a photo, recording location information (such as latitude and longitude), and sharing that information with the Manitoba Museum or the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, or with Manitoba Historic Resources.

To walk across private land to look for fossils, ask permission from the landowner. Fossil hunters should also take basic precautions – tell others where you are going, wear appropriate clothing, and carry water and food. 

Dr. Graham Young, who has worked at the Manitoba Museum since 1993, recently received a significant honour. The trilobite species Glossopleura youngi, newly discovered in rocks in the Northwest Territories, was named for Dr. Young in a scientific publication by former student Neal Handkamer. 

Discover more about fossils from Manitoba and beyond in the Museum Galleries and at Ultimate Dinosaurs! Open daily from 11 am to 5 pm until September 5, 2022. 

The head and tail of a large dinosaur curling around the edge of the frame onto a black background. Text reads,