Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Fort Providence ( Jun 12/00) - In an age when hunters and hikers use electronic gadgets linked to satellites to determine their exact location on the land, a simple stick is used to gauge the level of the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence.

A stick and some employees at the Big Water Motel, that is.

Due to Environment Canada budget cuts, that's all there is to keep GNWT's Marine Services branch and Water Survey Canada updated on water levels at the key crossing.

"There used to be a water gauge down there, but Environment Canada shut it down," said Les Shaw, director of marine services, from Fort Simpson.

"We've changed a lot of things within our operations in order not to have an impact on customers," said Shaw. "We're forced to be more efficient."

Low water levels this spring in the Mackenzie that led to ferry cuts and worries about the summer barge season, have brought the issue to focus.

"A lot of people don't see where cuts are made and what they affect," said Dale Ross, district manager with NWT-Nunavut for Water Survey Canada.

Others believe there's a need for a better way to measure the Mackenzie.

"I think they'd be better off with a gauge," said Randy Wedel, a surveyor with Water Survey Canada.

"It was an important gauge, they extracted some useful information from it," he added.

Shaw agreed the gauge would be nice to have, but it's not necessary.

"It's convenient to have it," he said. "With it we can monitor water levels and detect patterns quicker."

Even so, the measurements he gets "from the guys at the Big Water Motel on the banks of the Mackenzie," work just fine says Shaw. "Not high-tech stuff."

The water gauge is high-tech stuff and it's expensive.

The gauge is a white box with a cable running to a cylinder called a pressure transducer. It measures the surface level elevation of the water, water and air temperatures.

The gauge is linked to a satellite that continuously relays information to a monitoring station.

Cost of a water gauge station ranges between $7,000 and $35,000.