Ice bridge may take until Christmas
Jack Danylchuk
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Dec 08/00) - Low water and an ice jam in Great Slave Lake knocked out the ferry at Fort Providence and territorial transportation officials don't know when service across the Mackenzie River will resume.
"We hope to be back soon, but we can't predict what nature will do," Les Shaw, GNWT director of Marine Services, said Thursday.
"Delays are normal at this time of year, but we're also at the end of a low-water cycle in the big lake."
The water level is up this year, but it is still one-tenth of a meter below the 30-year average and that is enough to strand ice on sandbars where the lake empties into the Mackenzie.
Last winter, low water and ice shut the ferry service down for 17 days. Shaw said if the pattern of the past five years holds, the ice bridge won't open until after Christmas.
A small and growing mountain of freight is stranded on the south bank of the river in Fort Providence and Hay River. Until the water rises, mail, perishable goods and passengers will be flown into Yellowknife.
"We have about 50 truck loads caught on the other side of the river," said Janet Robinson, risk manager for RTL Robinson Enterprises Ltd.
"We're starting a shuttle for perishable goods, but fuel and other bulk freight will have to wait."
Frontier Coachlines is warning Yellowknife-bound travellers that they are on their own beyond Hay River.
Kandee Froese, Frontier's officer manager in Hay River, said that until the ferry returns, the company will airlift freight to Yellowknife at a cost of 40 cents per pound.
