Iqaluit small craft harbour redesigned in response to consultation

This illustration shows the GN’s revamped design for Iqaluit’s small craft harbour, with a bigger boat ramp than the first design. (GN IMAGE)

Iqaluit residents attend a May 3 consultation on the design of Iqaluit’s small craft harbour. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)

An all-tide basin is scrapped, to be replaced by a second, smaller breakwater in the newest design plans for Iqaluit’s small craft harbour, unveiled during the project’s most recent consultation at Iqaluit’s Catholic Parish Hall May 3.

Staff from Nunavut’s Community and Government Services’ capital projects division, which hosted the event, told about 20 attendees at the meeting the design change came after consultations with a local boating working group.

That means access to the water straight from the harbour at lower tide levels won’t be available, as was proposed in earlier designs.

But the harbour will sport an access ramp fives times—or 25 metres—the width of the current boat ramp, which they say will help reduce current congestion.

It’s all about what the regular boaters want, said Harold Kullmann, the lead engineer from Advisian, the contractor for the project.

A working group consulted on the project said the proposed parking lot, extending out from Sinaa Street and built using earth dredged from the basin, limited them from leaving boats and equipment on the shore, Kullmann said.

“The large parking area was where we were going to excavate the sand and dispose it in there. If we can’t dispose of it right there, the cost would have been a million dollars more to get rid of it,” he added.

By removing the large parking area, boats will have access to real mooring points, not rocks, that will be built around the inside of the harbour.

There will also be two floating docks to which boats can tie up in the middle of the harbour but the specifics for that component have yet to be designed, said the CGS department’s capital projects director, Paul Mulak.

The new northern breakwater will not be large enough to accommodate vehicles, but will have a lane for all-terrain vehicle access.

New lighting will also line the Sinaa Street and the two breakwaters with navigation lights at the end of the harbour.

Construction on the project won’t start until May 2018, but the capital projects team is assuring boaters they will continue to enjoy access to the water when building begins.

Both Iqaluit’s small craft harbour and deep sea port are expected to be completed by 2020.

Management of the facilities at that point will be taken over by Nunavut’s department of Economic Development and Transportation, which will oversee regular maintenance.

The two projects are expected to cost about $84.9 million: $21.2 million from the Government of Nunavut and $63.7 million from Ottawa.

Public consultations on the projects will continue until construction begins.