TETLIT'ZHEH/FORT MCPHERSON
Repeated closures of the Abraham Francis ferry on the Dempster Highway at Fort McPherson due to high water levels impeded food delivery and left some residents and tourists stranded, says the mayor of Inuvik.

The swamped landing, above, for the Abraham Francis Ferry at Fort McPherson on July 8. The rebuilt landing, below, for the ferry on July 12, 2016. - photos courtesy of GNWT Department of Transportation

"Actually the recent closure was a bit unusual, this time it was a little longer than we normally have seen in the past, so it has quite an impact on the community. All of our groceries or food trucks are coming and a number of them were caught on the other side," said Jim McDonald, Inuvik's mayor. "It definitely was one of the longer outages that we've seen in a number of years."

McDonald said grocery shelves weren't empty, but were starting to looking a little sparse.

"Several of the grocery trucks were on the opposite side of the river. There were still lots of groceries available, the most notable stuff (missing) would be the produce and fresh stuff. "

Almost more importantly were the people, both tourists and locals, stranded.

"My concern would be that tourists coming north to Inuvik may turn around and go back fearing to get caught on either side and delaying their travel plans," said McDonald. "Certainly there were tourists on this side and there were tourists and local people on the other side as well."

Closures pose a problem for many communities on the other side of the crossing, who rely on the ferry to transport people and goods into their areas. According to data from the Department of Transportation, last year the total traffic was 5,215 vehicles with the average daily traffic in July 2015 at 174 vehicles.

Which means that while they aren't able to provide an exact count of how many vehicles weren't able to make the crossing during the outages this month, over the 6 total days the ferry was closed, based on last year's averages, approximately 1,044 vehicles were delayed.

The first closure shut the ferry down from July 4 until July 5, but it was out of commission again on July 7. It didn't reopen officially until the morning of July 12.

According to officials with both the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Transportation, the closures were due to high water levels on the Peel River.

"The peak seen in water levels of the Peel River during the past week was at a value of approximately 3,000 cubic metres per second," said Judy McLinton, manager of public affairs and communications with the department of Environment and Natural Resources, in an e-mail to News/North.

"This peak is not unusual as rain events in mountainous regions can lead to high water events during the summer."

According to Jayleen Robertson, assistant deputy minister for the Department of Transportation, the water level was so high that at the time of the second closure, the river was about two metres higher than what's usual for July.

Which is a big problem for the ferry, operating along a cable that's fixed to either side of the river. The water actually came up over the ferry landings, and swept debris through the crossing.

"Those two factors combined just influences the ferry's ability to operate safely. So the debris coming down the river and the landings being essentially under water, so there's actually no way for vehicles to actually access the ferry," said Robertson. "We are at the mercy of weather. Because it is a cable ferry, we don't have the type of flexibility that we have at our other three ferries, where we can adjust where the ferry lands somewhat to be able to accommodate the change in water levels."

In order to reopen the crossing, Robertson said they essentially had to rebuild their landings.

"Crews worked extremely hard to get the landings repaired and operational. We had to build out the landing, they're extremely soft and wouldn't have been able to support the weight of the heavy traffic," she said.

"It's an important link, and there's no alternative. Our whole system is very dependent on weather and temperatures and everything else. And it's very important for community mobility and keeping the cost of living low. So we do everything we can to try to minimize those service disruptions because it does influence quality of life and cost of living."

Even though the ferry is up and running normally again, Mayor McDonald said he's still concerned about the food making it into Inuvik.

"The other thing with those trucks caught on the opposite side, by the time some of the stuff gets here, they're also getting outdated. They probably aren't all outdated but there would be some spoilage and they would lose some time on the dates, right?"

Still, he said high water may be preferable to the situation the region faced last summer, when low water levels caused disruptions.

"In some ways the higher levels are welcomed really," he said. "I mean last year we were extremely low water levels which effected the barging on the Mackenzie. Hopefully we won't have that problem this year, but we'll see."

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