Cape Dorset (June 16/03) - For weeks, the people living in Cape Dorset were on fuel rations -- 20 gallons per day per person. On June 6, an emergency airlift from Rankin Inlet, a Hercules, arrived in the community with 80,000 litres gasoline.

"We got the call saying that sales were going through the roof. They might have squeaked through until the next sealift arrived but they might have been a couple of weeks short. We put 80,000 litres in there to carry them over," said Todd MacKay, the operations manager for Nunavut's Petroleum Products Division.

Cape Dorset received 500,000 litres of gasoline last summer. MacKay said there are several communities in Nunavut, like Cape Dorset, where the demand for fuel is growing faster than the tank farms are.

He said PPD has already made arrangements for Cape Dorset to receive an extra 150,000 litres of gasoline this year on top of the annual 500,000 litres. It will be the first community where fuel is delivered by sealift this season. The shipment is scheduled to arrive on July 21.

PPD takes care of supplying fuel to every community in Nunavut except Iqaluit. MacKay said the influx of consumption in Cape Dorset could not have been predicted. The mayor of the community agreed.

"We were running out of fuel. We noticed about two months ago," said Mayor Matthew Saviardjuk Jaw.

"The number of snowmobiles is growing since last fall."

Jaw suggested the money people in the community received from the Ed Horne settlement resulted in an increased cash flow and, in turn, an increased number of snowmobiles.

The 80,000 litres of gasoline delivered to Cape Dorset was taken from the inventory PPD keeps in Rankin Inlet.

MacKay said the only costs associated with resupplying Cape Dorset was for transportation.

Gasoline consumption in Nunavut goes down significantly in the summer months, he said.

"When the summer comes and people start parking their snowmobiles the consumption really starts going down," he explained.