Manitoba Travel Vlog | Churchill, Ghost Towns, Abandoned Places and MORE!

What's up guys? Here we are. The Freetography Cross Canada tour continues. Here we are. We are in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Guys, we are going to go all over the place. We're going to go to Southern Manitoba. We are going to go to Southwestern, Southeastern, South Central. We're going to take a two-day train ride all the way up to Churchill, Manitoba. Guys, this is going to be an epic trip. I'm so excited, so pumped to finally be here this year, guys. We're in Manitoba. Let's go. Before we get started, I want to give a huge thank you to Bearskin Tactical Supply Company for sponsoring my Manitoba adventure. Throughout this trip, I wore a variety of bearskin gear, including the Bearskin Hoodie 4.0, Heavy Storm Rain Jacket, Sunbeater Hoodie, Rancher Shirt, and the Bearskin Serona T-shirt. If you're looking for tactical or outdoor gear for your own adventures, you'll find a link in the video description where you can shop Bearskin Tactical and check out their gear for yourself. Well, here's our first random abandoned find, guys, right here in Manitoba. I think I'm about probably half an hour to 45 minutes west-ish of Winnipeg, and I'm on my way to another place, and I saw this off the side of the road, so I thought maybe we'd pull over and just take a look because it's pretty interesting and unique the way it's sort of leaning like this, and whoever owns the field here has been nice enough to keep the grass cut around this place. Maybe he knows that people like to come and see this place. It's pretty interesting. Look at that. It's so crooked. The wind must just pummel this thing. It's obviously not safe to go inside, but it's open up enough that we can have a quick little look inside and see what's going on here. This is a really, really old house. Wow. Very old. Pretty neat, guys. Pretty neat seeing this kind of stuff, and as you can see, I'm just in the middle of a field here. Okay, guys, on we go. That's that. Okay, guys, I don't know what's going on here, but I saw this, and I decided to pull over because it's kind of neat, but there's a fence here, and every post on the fence has a helmet on it, and I don't understand why, so I wanted to come and maybe just get a video of it and take some pictures of it so that maybe when I get home, I can look it up and see if this has any kind of meaning. It goes as far back as you can see. Like, it goes way back to the back of the property. There is some kind of a business here, but I thought this was kind of funny when I was driving by, and I just saw all these colorful helmets on all of the fence posts, so we're going to check it out, and maybe I'll learn something about the helmets on the fence, but maybe it's literally just what we see, guys. It's just helmets on a fence. I don't know, guys. I don't know. What's up, guys? I'm right in the middle of Canada right now, not the geographical middle, the longitudinal middle of Canada, meaning from the east coast to the west coast, I'm right in the middle. In a few years when I go to Nunavut, then I'm probably going to go to the geographical center of Canada, but as far as being in the middle right now from coast to coast, I'm in the middle. Here we go. Okay, guys, so now we're at the ruins of the Pinua hydroelectric plant. I hope I said that right. Pinua. Pinua? Pinua. Pinua. You guys tell me. So where we are is this was the first year-round operating hydroelectric plant in the province of Manitoba. Okay, let's go across the bridge here. I love to swim in here. It must be dangerous. All right, so now we're going to go to the far side of the dam here. I guess they call this the spillway. We're going to go, maybe we'll go this way. We've got to go over there. Look at this. This place just keeps going. Wow, that's crazy. Okay, guys, our tour of Manitoba continues. I am in southern Manitoba right now, and I'm in, oh ----, I forget the name of St. Elizabeth. I am in what used to be a ghost town called St. Elizabeth, Manitoba, and the pictures that I saw while I was doing my research showed some houses in the ghost town, which I'm going to guess were right here because there looks like there used to be a house or two here, and they're gone, but there is still a church right here, and it's not an abandoned church. It's actually just the only structure left in the ghost town, and they maintain the property, they maintain the cemetery, and they leave the church open for people to come inside and visit. So we're going to go inside, and we're going to visit the church in the ghost town of St. Elizabeth, Manitoba. Unfortunately, this is all that's left is this here church. So let's go inside and check it out, guys. So here's the sign up here. Welcome to St. Elizabeth. All visitors welcome during daylight hours. However, no trespassing after dark. Please be respectful, and ghost hunters are not welcome. That's a pretty funny sign, guys. Okay, so again, guys, this is not an abandoned church, but it's just no longer used, but they leave it open for people to come in and see, okay? This place is funny. God is our hidden camera. That's hilarious. You can make donations. All right, so here we have it. We're in the sanctuary. It smells like an abandoned church. It feels like an abandoned church, but it's not, but I like it. Okay, can somebody tell me, I'm not a church goer, guys, and every time I'm in a church, I see this, but there's usually like a marble slab right here where this piece of wood is. Now, I don't have fingernails, so I can't get this off, but there's usually a marble slab here. Can somebody who goes to church and knows more than me tell me what that means? Why is there something always here on the altar in the church, and that's like a separate cutout thing, and it usually has marble in it? What is that, guys? Because I got no idea. Like I said, you've been with me for a while. I'm not a church goer. I'm not a religious guy. See, there's another one right there, so I just want to know what does that mean? All right, guys, it's day two here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and today, we're going to head down to the train station. We're going to hop on a train, and we're going to be on the train for two days, about 40 hours or so on a train ride to Churchill, but before I headed off to Churchill, I needed to come here and check out what is apparently called the windiest intersection in Canada, and right now, it's pretty much the wettest intersection. It's just raining. I mean, it's not any more windy than Yonge and Bloor, Yonge and Dundas, Queen's Medina. It's no more windy than it is anywhere else that I've been in the world, so I don't know, guys. I think maybe this is just like an old wives' tale or something about Portage and Main being the windiest intersection in Canada because, I mean, even if you look at the flags, the flags aren't really moving, guys. They're just kind of like moving around a little bit, but there's nothing crazy going on here. I don't know, guys. Maybe I'm just here on the and maybe some days it's super duper windy, but for me, guys, today in June 2026, it's not very windy. Now, we embark on what is supposed to be a roughly 40-hour train ride through the tundra from Winnipeg to Churchill. This part of the trip would come to be the most eventful, and I've learned a lot about how unreliable traveling by train is in Canada. All right, guys. The trip to Churchill, Manitoba starts here. We're at the train station. Got here bright and early. I'm checked in. I've already dropped off my bag, so now it's time to go chill out for a bit, wait for the train, and then we got about a 40-hour train ride to get to Churchill, Manitoba, guys, so let's go. Holy crap. All right, so I'm here for about another two hours at least because my train is actually delayed. They're having some technical issues with the train that they're trying to fix before they get it here, so they don't know how late it's going to be, but we could be here for a while. It is now 10 a.m., guys. All the doors just open on their own. Okay, guys. We're on the train. After a four-hour delay, we're finally on the train. Here is my house for the next 40 hours. I'm in a lower berth, so apparently tonight at some point they will come and turn this into a bed for me. I got a nice big window here. I don't have any neighbors yet. Nobody here. Nobody here. Over here, we got bathrooms, and there's a shower somewhere. I haven't seen where the shower is yet, but there's a shower somewhere, and yeah, so maybe a little bit later on, we'll go for a tour of the train. Finally, guys. What time is it? Four and a half hours. Four and a half hours after we were supposed to leave. That's okay, though. It's a beautiful day in Winnipeg. Holy cow. Yeah, so there are some maintenance issues with the train they had to take care of. Apparently, yesterday's train didn't even leave, and all the people's trips got canceled, but luckily ours didn't. Here we go, guys. So I got a window here, and I got a window there. There you go. There's Winnipeg. Bye-bye, Winnipeg. All right, guys. Check in along the way. Shortly after we left Winnipeg, everyone's phone started going off with emergency weather alerts, warning of extreme weather conditions ahead, and the risk of tornadoes forming. These were then upgraded to severe warnings and advising of tornado sightings. The skies were getting darker, and the rain was coming down. Dolphin. Dolphin. Dolphin. Loving this train ride, though, guys. So much fun. The views are amazing. Loving it, guys. What's up, guys? Lots and lots of activity and adventure since we last talked last night. So I went to bed at about 10 o'clock. Just kind of laid there. And all night, we were getting these hurricane warnings. No, I'm sorry. Tornado warnings on our phones. And it was raining. Pretty bad storm, but nothing crazy. And so I went to sleep, whatever. Figured I'll wake up in the morning, and we'll be somewhere. Well, at some point in the night, I woke up, and the train wasn't moving. And in my weird head, the way I think, I was like, oh, I guess maybe the conductor or the engineer has to sleep too. And maybe that's why we've stopped moving. So I woke up at eight o'clock after a really good sleep. This thing was very comfortable, guys. And we still weren't moving. So I got up to go get my breakfast, and the lady told me that we're doing free breakfast and free coffee today because we are stuck. Because of the storm last night, the tracks ahead are washed out. And the train can't get through the washout. So they're going to bus us from where we are to the next major terminal. And then we're going to get on another train from there to Churchill. So we are the next major terminal. It's called the pass. P-A-S. Maybe it's paw. I'm going to say the pass. So that's a three and a half hour drive from where we are right now. So about 45 minutes ago, apparently a bus left from the nearest city to where we are or town. It's going to come pick us up, offload all of our luggage, all of us and our things. I guess it will be several buses. Drive us for three and a half hours to the pass. Then we're going to load on a train that's there waiting for us. Then we're going to take that train to Churchill. So lots of excitement, guys. Everybody here is in good spirits. So nobody's being angry. The staff are being amazing, the is a beautiful day. Look out the window here. Nice clear sky, just a nice little breeze. So I got to start packing my stuff, get it ready for whenever this bus shows up. And then I'll check in with you guys on the bus for a three and a half hour bus ride to, is it the pass? I want to say the pass, but I feel like it's not the pass because I pronounced everything wrong. Anyways, Okay, guys, three and a half hour bus ride. And now we're here. I figured out how to say it. It's not the pass. It's the paw. That's how the guy on the bus said it anyways, the paw. So anyways, three and a half hours. We're back. The train is literally exactly the same as the one that we were on. So here we go. That's the bus that we were on right there. There's our train. So now we're getting back on the train and we got quite a trip to go before we get to Churchill. So let's go check out what the train looks like from this side. All right, guys, it's just after five o'clock, Tuesday, June 30th, and we're finally pulling in to Churchill. So it's not so bad. So after a five hour delay at the train station, we left. Plus getting stopped due to washout and a tornado, having to get on a bus, I had to wait several hours on the train, getting on a bus. We're actually only eight hours late coming into Churchill, which is awesome because the team here and VIA have done a really good job at getting us here fast. When we stopped at Thompson, Thompson is supposed to be a five hour stopover, but they got it in and out in like, I think half an hour. And there's been a couple of other stops that are supposed to be like an hour long and they just go in and out. And when the engineers were able to, they'd speed up and they managed to get us here eight hours after the time you're supposed to get here. So that's pretty good. So still got a bit of time before we get into the actual train station, get our luggage and then get to the hotel or the, it's not a hotel, it's a lodge. Anyways, more to come on all this. I'm going to start taking it in. I'm going to look around, check in with you guys later. Okay guys, here's something I've never seen before. So I'm currently right at the very mouth of Hudson Bay and it's where polder bears often will come in to town off the, off the bay. And here we have, just like we have in Ontario, a deer crossing sign. Here we have polder bear crossing sign right here, guys. That's something I've never seen before. Something I didn't expect, but it makes sense because this is where polder bears will cross off the bay into Churchill. When I arrived in Churchill, Manitoba, the town was wrapped in fog. Hudson Bay was still packed with ice, giving Churchill this strange, quiet atmosphere that felt completely different from anywhere else I had been on my Manitoba trip. With only 29 kilometers of road to explore, I picked up a truck and started driving. I went as far as the road would take me, turning down random side roads and following my curiosity. Along the way, I found abandoned tour buses, old vehicles scattered across the rocks, a forgotten playground, a rocket testing facility, and an old radar site known locally as the Golf Balls. I also had the chance to explore the wreck of the Ithaca, a ship that ran aground during a storm in 1960 and has remained there ever since. The next morning, I was up at 4.15, amazed by how bright it already was. Before the rest of town was awake, I visited an abandoned naval building. Later, I headed out onto Hudson Bay in search of beluga whales. At first, they were a little shy, but on the way back, we came across a feeding frenzy, with whales suddenly appearing all around us. But the biggest surprise of my time in Churchill was still waiting. I had become fascinated by the massive Port of Churchill grain terminal. After asking around and making a few calls, I somehow ended up getting a personal tour. From the roof, through the machinery, and all the way down to the basement, I got to see one of the most impressive structures in the entire town, from the inside. And somehow, while I was there, I even met a longtime Freaktography follower who recognized me. From shipwrecks and abandoned buildings, to beluga whales, polar bear country, fog, ice, and empty roads, Churchill was one of the most unexpected and fascinating stops of my entire Manitoba adventure. And the best part? There was still more of Manitoba waiting for me in Winnipeg. All right, what's up guys? Good morning! Here we are in a place called Solsgirth, Manitoba. Solsgirth, Manitoba. So it's morning time, here we are. I got my rental car, and this is where I'm living for the next few days. So it's breakfast time, so I'm boiling up some water to make some coffee. This is my camping coffee, it's called Alpine Start Instant Coffee. It's got coffee and non-dairy coconut creamer inside it, all right, so I don't need to carry milk around with me. And then for breakfast, I'm having raspberry and vanilla granola, which is already in here cooking away as we speak. And on my way in yesterday, I stopped and I saw an old Amish man selling stuff on the side of the road, so I bought some buns from him, and I bought some strawberry jam. One moment here guys, I just got to get this going. This is boiling now. Ah, there we go, let that cool down a bit. Anyways guys, so I got in last night about 11 o'clock after a very long drive, three and a half, four hour drive from Manitoba, I should say from Winnipeg. And so off in the distance, there's an abandoned church, and that's my destination, my first destination for today. And so I figure I'll come here and I'll find somewhere to park the car, which is my rental car here, right there as you can see, and sleep in here, and then get up in the morning and start. Well guys, when I woke up this morning, I was awoken to a surprise of one, two, and three little abandoned buildings here, little houses. There's an abandoned house over there, there's some kind of a town hall looking thing over there, and then there's this house right here, and then there's an extra bonus abandoned church over there. So it's almost like I went, it's almost like I wound up in a little ghost town that I didn't even know, here by the Souls Girth Grain Elevator. So this is going to be my first go for the day guys, so I'm going to have my breakfast, get my coffee, get my gear together, and we're going to go and explore what there is here, and we got a big day driving all over southwestern Manitoba. All right, let's go. Pretty steady path going through here. Big water mess right here guys. No matter how good I sleep, when I sleep in my car, I never sleep good enough. Oh, look at all the hats in this room. Oh man, this guy had a whole hat collection. That's a lot of hats. Okay guys, so this was a surprise to me, because I came to see another abandoned church, which is just around the corner, and then I spotted this one off in the distance, so I'm going to go see what's going on here. Okay, we're in guys, and yeah, it's pretty empty. No pews, no piano, nothing hanging from the ceiling, nothing on the altar. Okay, well we're here, so we might as well walk through it. Okay guys, now we got this abandoned church here on the same, in the same area as all the others, so we're going to see if we can get inside here and do this one too. Let's go. Okay guys, looks like we made it inside, and it's a good one. Wow, it looks like this church has been closed since 2002 from the calendar on the wall over there guys. September 2002. Nice. Wow, look at this. I'm so glad we're in this one, so we can move on. We have lots of places to go, so these are going to be short little quick snippet videos, because I got lots to see today guys, so let's go. My next stop is an abandoned residential school that has sat abandoned and decaying since 1972, but little did I know that this location was holding a surprise for me. Okay guys, here we go. As I was approaching the school from the back, it appeared that someone was living in a house on site, a detail that I was not aware of prior to my arrival. I had completed a whole walkthrough of the facility, quietly taking photos and stepping gently. Then I started my video, filming my way back down from the top floor. It didn't take long for dog who lived on site to start barking. At first, I brushed it off as just a barking dog. The dog's barks started getting louder, more aggressive, and they sounded like more of an alert than just a normal barking dog. As the dog's barks got louder and more consistent, I decided that I should probably pack my things and leave. Okay guys, as we continue on our tour through the province of Manitoba, here we have a school. I believe this was called McConnell School. Now, I can't get inside. Doors are locked, and I'm not going to jump in through that one open window. I took a look inside, and it's just like rammed with boxes and crap, so there's really nothing to see inside. But here's a look at this old abandoned schoolhouse in the former village of, I think it's McConnell. And if we head over this way across the field, you'll see the two really old grain elevators. And I might even put my drone up and get some pictures of those. And there was what looks like a church straight ahead, and there's a car there, so I wonder if maybe that's like somebody's house that lives there. There's a car parked right up front. But this is the former village of McConnell in Manitoba. Okay guys, back to the car we go. Okay guys, welcome to the ghost town of Pope Manitoba. I think there's only two buildings. This, I believe, was the general store right here, guys. A whole bunch of nothing, pretty much road to the left, road to the right, and nothing left. There was train tracks over there, so we'll go that way, and we'll see what's over here. But this is the general store, so let's see what's going on here. Well, would you look at that, eh guys? General store. At least I think that's what it was. What's this? Seeking drummer for a black metal band. Experience unwanted. Just be terrible and ugly. Contact forth.empire at gmail.com for evisceration. P.S. Would probably be good if you already have a drum set. We have just been banging on cans, you silly guys. All right, looks like we got some kind of a house here. We've got a train going by here, guys. It's very loud. Oh, birds. It's dark in here, guys. Cool, though, we got a couch and a TV. All right, that's pretty neat. Somebody's been staging things here and setting things up that they find. June 2003. Wow, still clothes in the closet. That's cool, though. Wow, look at all this stuff. Bathroom, super duper old fridge and freezer. All right, well, that's it for this one, then. This is an abandoned Eaton's catalog house, and one that I was very excited to visit. However, on this trip, I had already seen several ticks and had to wipe many of them off of my pants and shoes. The walk to this house would have meant walking through this field of tall grass, and I was definitely not in the mood for more ticks, so I settled for drone footage. I spotted this building off in the distance from the road while I was driving, but there was absolutely no way of getting to it. No road, no driveway, no path. But it looked so interesting, surrounded by the lush green prairie farmland and the blue sky. So again, I utilized my drone to capture what looks like an old abandoned church or schoolhouse. My next stop would be an old abandoned hospital. Two of them, actually. I had no idea if there would be any access or what the situation would be. I could be driving a very long way for nothing, or I would be spending my last full day of exploring in one location. I have no idea about this place, guys. Like, what we're gonna find, what's in the different rooms. I literally have no information about this. So this is the main door, right at the very front in the middle. All right, so we went to the back, and there was nothing back there, so let's go down the hallways here. That's where we came from, so we'll go this way. Here's the old autoclaves where they clean all their equipment. These are really cool. We have bathtubs here. Those are nice. The light in here is amazing. Okay, guys, we made it into the other building. I didn't think we were gonna do it, but we did it. So I don't know how much time I'm gonna spend here, because I spent a lot of time in the other building, and this is a pretty damn good building, guys. This is way better than the other one. Holy crap, guys. Look at this. This is amazing. Holy crap, guys. This building is so good. This is pretty cool here, how this wall has like a curve to it, and in the curved part is the bathtub. Look how small the bathtub is. It's tiny. Guys, look at this staircase. Oh my god, it's terrifying. Holy crap. Guys, this floor is crazy. The colors, the textures, the peeling paint, the decay. Oh my god, guys, this whole floor. Like, there's nowhere to look that's not awesome. Look at this. This is crazy. Okay, guys, here we are still in Manitoba. I don't know where I am right now. Somewhere between Winnipeg and Brandon, Manitoba, and I have something to show you. The Happy Rock. Look at this, guys. This is a happy, happy rock. I don't know what the story is. I don't know what the deal is. I don't know why he's so happy, and I don't know what he's carrying on his arm, or why he's wearing a top hat. But guys, this is a very, very happy rock. I want to just show you guys, because I saw this as I was driving by the highway, and I had to stop and see it, and take some pictures, and show you guys the happy rock. Now, that's about it. So, now we're going to go somewhere else. Let's go. What's up, guys? So, we're still here in Manitoba, and you guys might remember earlier, yesterday, we saw the big happy rock. Well, I have another surprise for you guys, and I have no idea what it means, or why it's here, but check out the big, giant banana with a bird on his arm, guys. This is apparently called the banana belt, and they got a giant banana for a town mascot. Check it out, guys. Let's go see what this means. There's a sign over here with an explanation. Okay. Welcome to the banana belt. Melita and Area Tourism Committee first envisioned a statue to promote tourism in our community in 2001. Melita was dubbed the banana belt many years ago by Manitoba agro-meteorologists, because Melita has slightly warmer temperatures than the rest of the province, thus the idea of a very unique banana statue. The Blue Jay was incorporated to acknowledge that Melita was recognized worldwide as an important birding area, and is the grasslands bird capital of Manitoba. I don't know, guys. I mean, some of these towns will do anything to get put on the map, and I guess this is what this town did. They made Mr. Giant Banana here. Every year, every province that I travel to leaves its mark on me somehow. Saskatchewan was the quiet. British Columbia was the air. Alberta was the colors. Ontario and Quebec, well, you don't count. I'm there all the time. But Manitoba? Manitoba was the people. Everywhere I went, from the smallest towns and forgotten places to the streets of Winnipeg and the remote community of Churchill, there was a real sense of pride in the people I met. Pride in their communities, pride in their history, and especially pride in their indigenous roots and culture. That is what I think I'll remember most about this trip. Not just the places I photographed or the things I found, but the stories behind them and the people who shared them with me. And of course, just how unbelievably flat Manitoba is. But that's what travel is supposed to do. You leave with photos, videos, and memories. But if you're lucky, you also leave with something that stays with you. And when I think back on my time in Manitoba, I think the people will be what I remember most.