by Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 09/98) - The joy of being able to finally drive out of Fort Good Hope and Norman Wells are being tempered with frustration over what's turning into another short ice-road season.

The ice road connecting Fort Good Hope, Norman Wells, Tulita, Deline and Wrigley opened Feb. 6 but is set to close March 16.

"It seems to be getting shorter every year," said K'ahsho Got'ine chief Everett Kakfwi in Fort Good Hope, commenting on the past two years' problems compared to years past.

"It should be the other way around."

The main reason for the late openings is the lack of snow, said Norman Wells Mayor Frank Pope.

He said that ever since the NWT Department of Transportation was found guilty of violating the Federal Fisheries Act while building the Mackenzie Valley winter road in 1995, dirty snow and gravel cannot be used to build the road.

"We need a permanent link," Pope said. "Something to tie up with the Dempster Highway and something you can drive on more than one month a year."

In late December or January, Ranger Oil constructed an ice road from Norman Wells to Arnota Creek using ice chunks from a dock along the shores of Norman Wells.

The blocks were crushed into chips, hauled by dump truck and scattered on the Ranger road. Workers then sprayed layers of water over the chips to create a drivable motorway.

"Why can't the government do that?" Pope asks.

Actually, the government does sometimes. The GNWT has in the past hauled ice and used it for fill at Vermillion Creek South, and it has flooded the Mackenzie River at Tulita to bring the allowable weights up faster than if natural ice were allowed to develop.

The Ranger Oil road opened weeks before the main road system opened Feb 6. "We did it to get our equipment back and forth," said Larry Veilleux, Ranger Oil community affairs officer. "We incurred a large cost but the road was built to our standard."

Although the company would not share any figures relating to the cost of building the road, it is that kind of money that likely keeps the GNWT from doing the same thing.

"We're under extremely tight restraints," said Dale Thomson, manager of safety and public affairs with the Department of Transportation. "The dollars just aren't there."

The need for construction standards became clear March 2 when the wheels of a gasoline tanker truck broke through the ice road between Wha Ti and Rae Edzo at kilometre 45 -- a section built by the GNWT.

The Ranger Oil road is still operational and the GNWT has assumed liability since its own ice road system opened.