Although Tyler Tyance and his crew are no strangers to the long days, chilly nights, and perils involved in building northern Ontario’s winter roads, this year they face an additional obstacle: insufficient snow.
For isolated First Nations, who depend on seasonal routes to deliver necessities to their communities, winter roads are a lifesaver. For the past few weeks, Tyance, the owner of the Rezneck Diesel Crew, has been constructing the road leading to Cat Lake First Nation, which is located approximately 180 kilometers north of Sioux Lookout.
“You’re pretty much at the mercy of Mother Nature,” Tyance stated. “It’s really, really tough on your body and really exhausting.”
He had to scramble out of the ice last year while using a snow-grooming machine in order for his team to pull the machine before it gets frozen.
The Cat Lake Road was open to light traffic at this time last year. But they’re several weeks behind schedule because of this year’s abnormally warm temperatures. In order to help pack down the muskeg, the community has borrowed snow guns from the Dryden Ski Club, and Tyance is using a self-contained unit from Alberta that has two industrial snow guns attached.
Concerns regarding the future of the winter road network are once again being raised by climate change in a number of other First Nations throughout the region. According to Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), as of Tuesday, North Caribou Lake First Nation was the only community in Ontario open to full loads. Four other communities were open to light loads, and 26 roads were still being built.
Postponed infrastructure projects
Compared to flying, winter road transportation of supplies to remote First Nations is far less expensive. Chief Russell Wesley stated that they’ll be lucky to get four to five weeks out of the season this year, compared to seven to eight weeks last year when Cat Lake’s winter road was open.
Major infrastructure projects thus continue to be postponed. For instance, Wesley is worried that if the bridges are unable to sustain the weight of the transport trucks, Cat Lake, which has been attempting to resurface its airport for years, will be forced to retreat once more.
He added that another difficulty is the short application deadlines for federal and provincial funding, particularly when grant money has a deadline for use.
“Sometimes their approval cycles are not aligned with the winter road window, so oftentimes what happens is different construction projects get delayed and they miss the winter road window.”
In order to avoid this, efforts are being made to expedite and simplify project approval processes, according to Nico Paul, the director of community infrastructure for ISC’s Ontario region.
“You really look at the typical winter road season for that community and then start to work backwards, so you’ll understand when would the design have to be done, when would you have to go to tender, when would you need to start to have materials ready to be shipped up the winter roads.”
