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First Nation explores all-weather road for Far North region

By KELLY LOUISEIZE Far North – The Mushkegowuk Tribal Council is investigating various modes of delivering goods and services to remote Northern communities year-round.

By KELLY LOUISEIZE

Far North – The Mushkegowuk Tribal Council is investigating various modes of delivering goods and services to remote Northern communities year-round.

The Mushkegowuk partnership includes the First Nation communities of Moose Factory, Fort Albany, Kashechewan, Attawapiskat and the Town of Moosonee.

The study will allow the team to examine all current modes of transportation including rail, sea, winter road, and an all-weather road.

All of these communities are connected via winter road access for approximately three months of the year. Winter roads are plowed pathways on lakes.

Air transportation is the only other means of travelling from one community to another. Year-round freight and passenger rail service operates between Moosonee and Cochrane, while a barge from Moosonee transports freight to other Far North communities during the summer months. At times the winter roads are too mild to chance hauling heavy loads.

Lighter vehicles can be driven on the ice, but not heavy mining equipment. The warm winter slowed down projects like the De Beers Victor mine project in Attawapiskat.

“Projects are being held back because we cannot get the material up there,” Mushkegowuk Tribal Council Grand Chief Stan Loutit says.

These warmer winter spells may have given government the impetus to examine various transportation modes for people and industries in the farther northern regions.

The goal is to obtain a method of transportation that could link each community as well as southern centres such as Timmins and Cochrane.

Toronto-based IER Planning Research and Management Services, which is performing the study, will have open session meetings asking members of the communities and supply companies for their input.

Those findings will be part of the report that will be sent back to FedNor and the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, which are funding the study. The Ministry of Natural Resources will also be privy to the process, as there has been an interest in opening up Hudson Bay as a possible port route.

The more Loutit speaks with other community members, the more he hears that an all-weather road is probably the most practical and “that may be a recommendation coming out of the report once it’s done.”

Another study will be undertaken to identify the best route for the all-season road and who would be best to pay for it.

Loutit says the idea of building an all-weather road has been long on the communities’ agenda.

“Now is the time to be looking at the road with De Beers Canada’s Victor project and (other) resource development(s) taking place.”

The report is expected to come in by late summer or fall at the latest.