Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Fort McPherson (Sep 24/01) - The hamlet's only gas bar was running on empty for three and a half days last week, after the refueling truck broke down on the way to town.

Abe Peterson fills up his jerry cans after a three-day dry spell with no gas for his hunting trip. - Lynn Lau/NNSL photo

Tetlit Co-op manager John Bursey said the station was clean out of gasoline Sept. 15 and expecting the truck to arrive that evening. It didn't arrive until noon Sept. 18.

"This time was just bad luck," Bursey said. The station has run out of gas before, but usually for just a day.

The truck was coming in from Edmonton and lost a wheel bearing near Eagle Plains, Yukon. The truck driver then had to unhook his load and headed back to Dawson City to pick up a part before he could continue on.

Resident Abe Peterson said the lack of fuel wrecked his weekend plans. "I wanted to go moose hunting but there was no gas in town," he said, filling up Tuesday afternoon. "This happened twice this summer. There's no reason for it. I wanted to go on Friday. Now it's Tuesday. I'm on my time off and I got to go back to work on Thursday."

Agnes Francis had similar problems. "I wanted to go out berry picking," she said. "I wanted to go yesterday because it was my day off, but I didn't get to go. Now it's not my day off any more. It messed up a lot of people's plans for hunting or whatever."

The next nearest gas station is in Tsiigehtchic, about 60 kilometres away.

Until March, there were two gas stations in town, both losing money, Bursey said. The two owners, Tetlit Co-op and Dunnett Petroleum, owned by the band, joined forces to form Tetlit Petroleum Distribution Inc. The second gas station was closed March 7.

A new gas bar is currently under construction to replace the current one-pump station. The new station should be open at the end of October. The tank capacity of the new station is the same, so it wouldn't have made a difference in this latest gas shortage.

Bursey said he'll probably buy gas from Whitehorse, instead of Edmonton, in the future.