Winter roads receive extra funding in 2010/11

News — 15 December 2010

With the provincial government investing over $4.5 million in the winter roads connections for the 2010/11 year, the far north First Nations communities will see the financial ease of importing goods such as food, fuel and heavy equipment.

Thirty First Nations organizations in the far north have received funding for the winter roads project, to build temporary 3,000 kms of roads over frozen ground and waterways, connecting to a permanent provincial highway or rail system.

“Other times of the year, it’s extraordinarily challenging if everything has to be moved in by air so this becomes a crucial link for the remote First Nations. We’ve actually increased our funding envelope this year by $300,000,” says Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry, Michael Gravelle.

“This provides work for a number of the First Nations communities as well. They are very directly involved in the construction of these roads,” says Gravelle. “It’s a pretty major road system, one that depends on weather.”

Gravelle says the province is working closely with the communities to re-align some of the roadways to bring them to higher ground, with some already complete.

Asheweig Winter Road Corporation received the second highest amount in funding of $313,810. With 193 kilometres of road to build connecting Wawakapewin and Wunnumin Lake to Pickle Lake, Asheweig contracts out the work locally.

Construction on the roads has already started, and Mike Mamakwa, Chair of the Asheweig Corporation says they have equipment positioned on both ends of the road, to assist in quicker and more efficient construction.

Mamakwa says they require at least 18 inches of ice to accommodate the heavy equipment, such as the groomer, which weighs approximately 17,000 pounds.

“There’s a standard of winter road construction, as provided by the province. We only build the roads up to standard, which is 80,000 pounds,” reported Mamakwa. “If someone wanted to haul something, say over 100,000 pounds, they have to notify us that they are hauling that weight over the ice road and we’ll need more ice. It’s extra cost.”

Keewaywin First Nations does not contract their construction of the winter roads out to others, and keeps all the work internal. Keewaywin Power Authority Manager, Rodney Kakegamic says they have shared funding with the province of an even 50/50 split.

Some of the steps involved in building the roads, are waiting for a safe initial thickness of 13 to 15 inches, applying tree markers and then dragging the ice with large timber drags to penetrate the frost.

“We face a lot of challenges, like warm weather. Every day is different, and the weather is unpredictable,” says Kakegamic. “On a good winter, the roads are open eight to nine weeks, but last year was only maybe five weeks.”

Another challenge is a lack of snow to build the snow bridges over small creeks. Snow is packed, flooded, packed again and flooded again to create a frozen bridge.

General standards are 30” to 36” of ice to move the large fuel trucks and transports, but Keewaywin requests that the large vehicles check the ice for themselves, to reduce liability issues.

By Ally Dunham

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