Nunavut government goes on transportation vision quest

AARON SPITZER

IQALUIT — In 20 years Nunavut won’t have a tunnel tying Baffin Island to Nunavik, nor a fleet of hovercrafts providing year-round sealift services.

But what it should have is a road linking it to southern Canada, an ice-capable fleet of ships and barges, and convenient airline service to all of its communities.

That’s the vision laid out by the Nunavut transportation department in its recently released Transportation Strategy.

The document is the product of public consultations conducted by the department last summer and fall in which residents, politicians and transportation-industry officials weighed in on the way they want Nunavut’s road, sea and air infrastructure to look in the year 2021.

The document doesn’t go into much detail about specific road projects or shipping routes. Rather, it presents a framework of general goals and principles.

More concrete details will come in the next few months, said Anthony Saez of the department’s policy and planning division.

“We’ll take that document and translate it into to specific projects for transportation infrastructure and development,” he said. “What we’re going to try to do is devise projects that will reflect the principles and visions of the transportation strategy.”

The transportation strategy contains few revelations, and keeps its suggestions on the conservative side.

On the road

The report suggests that Nunavut should have overland, all-weather road links: the much-anticipated “Keewatin Road” that would tie the Kivalliq region to the highway system in Manitoba, and another route providing access from Kitikmeot mine-sites to Bathurst Inlet on the Arctic Ocean.

Ambitious projects like these should be partially funded by the resource-development corporations that would stand to gain from having better access to their properties, the report concludes.

The transportation strategy also suggests that the overland trails currently connecting communities could slowly be upgraded to seasonal roads, and then eventually converted to year-round roads.

For now, trail markers and emergency shelters should be established on well-used overland paths, and such routes should be regularly patrolled, it says.

Sailing the sea

In 2021, sea transport will remain the key means by which Nunavut gets bulk cargo and fuel, the Transportation Strategy states.

By that time the shipping season to Nunavut could be expanded through the use of “a modern, efficient, ice-capable fleet of ships and barges.” Nunavut’s shipping season presently lasts only a few months, from July through September or October.

The report further suggests that sea-transport services in Nunavut should be largely conducted by a “dominant carrier able to organize services in the most efficient manner.”

Nunavut also needs more detailed ocean navigation charts, and better docking and warehouse facilities so that goods can be safely unloaded and stored in communities.

Finally, the report asserts that “the waters between our islands are sovereign to Nunavut and Canada” — a challenge to international shippers, many of which consider the Northwest Passage to be a public waterway.

Up in the air

Under the category of air transportation, the report suggests that Iqaluit should be linked to all other Nunavut hubs — a situation not presently in place. To get to Cambridge Bay from the territorial capital, for instance, travelers must first pass through Rankin Inlet and Yellowknife.

The transportation strategy also emphasizes the importance of local oversight of the northern airline industry. “Control of air transportation services by Nunavummuit will best serve the long-term interests of territorial development,” it states.

Helicopters should be more widely available to facilitate resource exploration, tourist trips and search-and-rescue operations.

Finally, the document mentions the need to reduce airplane exhaust-emissions and noise.