Talk of the Town

In Ottawa hot topics can include but is no limited to: the Senators hockey team and their players, political scandals at all levels of gov't, and in a few more months the amount of snow that was shovelled.

The conversations everywhere in Fort McPherson for the past week has revolved around the ferry closure.

In actual fact, the McKenzie river ferry was closed two days ago. People here can no longer drive north to Inuvik. In another week the Peel River (at 8 mile) will close so it will be impossible to drive south as well. We will be locked in and the only way out is a $200 flight to Inuvik one way.

A 24 hour notice was issued on Thursday so Truckers in Inuvik wouldn't be stranded for the next 6 weeks. The subject is important because it affects everyone's life. Take for example the cost of food - some product doubles in price and other items close to triple!

Here's the way it works: Everything from paper clips and vehicle parts to food items and furniture is flown to Inuvik by large aircraft and from there delivered to communities like McPherson by smaller aircraft. There are no extra flights to compensate for everything flown in. Instead the airlines reconfigure the space by removing seats and replacing it with cargo .

The exception is larger items like furniture; these are delivered by truck to the river where locals will risk their lives on the semi-frozen river with small boats. They load the boat and push it across the ice; if the ice breaks they jump in the boat! They do get paid quite handsomely for this unique job. Mike Row from "Dirty Jobs" might be interested in this one.

This past Thursday the ferry ride to Tsiigehtchic which is normally 10 minutes was actually closer to an hour because the ferry had to behave like an icebreaker! The captain had the throttle on full steam as we all watched the boat crash into huge chunks of ice. Several times the ferry simply stopped because it couldn't continue forward. In response the Captain (from NB) backed the ferry up about 100 meters or so and then gave it all the engines could muster and charged ahead again to break new ice. He did this several times. I had mixed feelings about this because although I was having a blast and wish I had my camera with me, I kept thinking of the Exxon Valdez fiasco.

It will be early December before the ice is thick enough to drive over. However, I found out I can actually continue to visit Chief Paul Niditchie School on Thursdays without interruption. At the vehicle wait point seen in the posted picture, there's an off-road trail about 20 meters back and off to the right; it's a makeshift path across rough terrain for a half kilometer. This "road" leads to the Arctic Red river and is not as far to cross as the McKenzie river but is still a couple of hundred metres. I'll be able to park the truck at the side of the river and walk across the ice. Apparently an elder in town walked across the ice about 2 weeks ago with a canoe in hand of course - just incase. Sometimes you have to go the extra mile to get a job done but I'll litterally go the extra distance just to get to work.