Famous Canadian Ice Road Melts for the Last Time

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Each winter in Canadaโ€™s far north, a series of ice roads take form, providing people and supply trucks temporary access to the regionโ€™s otherwise isolated towns. But rapid changes to Canadaโ€™s north means this spring marks the final melt of one of the northโ€™s famed ice highways, the โ€˜Road to the Top of the World,โ€™ stretching across 187 kilometresย of frozen Mackenzie Delta and Arctic Ocean in the Northwest Territories, linking Inuvik toย Tuktoyaktuk.

โ€œItโ€™s taking longer for everything to freeze up, and the ice isnโ€™t as thick,โ€ Wally Schumann, the minister of infrastructure for the Northwest Territories, told the New York Times in April. The Northwest Territories is warming at four to five times the globalย rate.

Under construction right now is a new permanent $300-million all-weather road โ€” but its long-term stability is also challenged by the unpredictable, warming landscape says Phil Marsh, professor and Canada Research Chair in Cold Regions Water Science at Wilfred Laurierย University.

โ€œThis area is continuous permafrost with massive amounts of ground ice,โ€ Marshย explained.

In the spring, melting water can carve sizeable channels through the ground ice, โ€œwhich can rapidly drain a lake in less than twenty fourย hours.โ€

Thatโ€™s not great for highways. Canadians might recall the incredible story of a small upland lake โ€œfalling off a cliffโ€ in the Northwest Territories, causing a slow hillside collapse and the displacement of millions of cubic metres of mud andย debris.

Once a โ€œRoad to Resources,โ€ New Highway Highlights Strugglingย North

Ice roads have long played a key role in connecting remote northern communities, bringing workers from small towns to remote jobs at mines, including the northโ€™s dramatic diamond mines.

Northwest Territories regional director and former Inuvik Mayor Peter Clarkson estimates that the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk has been in formal operation sinceย 1974.

During that time, it has provided a seasonal yet vital link for โ€˜Tuk,โ€™ temporarily alleviating astronomical grocery and supply prices and providing social and cultural connection between the twoย communities.

The ice road has also simplified the transport of the diesel fuel needed to power the hamletโ€™s generators, which is otherwise shipped via barge or flown in by plane during the remainder of theย year.

Canadaโ€™s north is already experiencing effects of climate change that are outpacing those in the rest of theย country.

Yet despite general concerns about the reliability of winter ice roads in the Northwest Territories climate adaptation strategy, instability of the Inuvik-Tuk ice road itself was not the sole driver in building the permanent Inuvik-Tuk Highway. Indeed, data on the ice road from 1983-2015 itself reveal that the road has remained open a fairly steady average of just over four months eachย winter.

โ€œThe ice road season has not really shrank dramatically,โ€ explained Clarkson. โ€œYou donโ€™t need forty below to make good ice. Minus fifteen and no snow will doย it.โ€

Ironically, much of the original economic case for the all-weather road was placed on the potential for supporting additional fossil fuel development along the Mackenzie Delta and Beaufortย Sea.

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised the new permanent highway would become Canadaโ€™s โ€œroad to resources.โ€

But a late 2016 arctic drilling ban by both U.S. and Canadian governments has put a halt to those prospects. While the new U.S. administration may attempt to reverse course on that front, itโ€™s uncertain if the highway will deliver the economic salvation onceย promised.

Recently the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation applied for federal funding to explore gas deposits along the new highway corridor. Oil and gas plays in the Northwest Territories, far from any pipelines or roads, have often been considered uneconomic. The new highway could changeย that.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed to northerners that he wants to see other doors of economic opportunity opening, it remains to be seen what form those opportunities willย take.

For the moment, Tuktoyaktuk Mayor Dennis Nasogaluak feels the bulk of the anticipated economic boom from the opening of the highway has now beenย stifled.

โ€œItโ€™s really difficult for us and weโ€™re really stumped about what weโ€™re going to do,โ€ he told DeSmogย Canada.

โ€œTourism might be two or three months a year, but itโ€™s nothing to replaceย industry.โ€

โ€œWe are really struggling with the long-term outlook for our community. A few people are able to up and leave and follow the jobs, but the majority of us here canโ€™t doย that.โ€

The Inuvi-Tuktoyaktuk ice road, meandering through Arctic tundra. Photo: Matt Jacques for DeSmogย Canada.

Highway Construction in Husky Watershed Causes Concern forย Inuvialuit

The nature of the new all-weather highway and its interaction with the local ecosystem have also raised someย questions.

Biologist Danny Swainson was working as Fisheries Resource Specialist for the Fisheries Joint Management Committee during the first years of construction on the highway, beginning inย 2014.

โ€œThere was very little done to establish a baseline on the fisheries in the region before construction beganโ€ Swainson told DeSmogย Canada.

โ€œGoing in, we knew almost nothing about how the entire system operates and how important these streams may be for certain species,โ€ he said. โ€œThatโ€™s the responsibility of the developer, and the work that was done wasnโ€™t up toย par.โ€

Over the course of construction, Swainson said heโ€™s noticed sediment, erosion and fish passageย issues.

โ€œAll of this is happening in the Husky Lakes watershed, which is an invaluable resource for the Inuvialuit,โ€ heย said.

โ€œRoads and fisheries in general donโ€™t get along very well, so the importance of a strong local management plan for Husky Lakes and the surrounding streams is necessary. Thatโ€™s going to be crucial to protecting that fishery goingย forward.โ€

There are also concerns that the road itself may play a feedback role in accelerating the warming and melting of the surroundingย landscape.

โ€œOne of the unknowns would be the dust from the road, especially in the winter time. If itโ€™s a lot, it would affect the timing of snowmelt, and the underlying permafrost,โ€ Marshย said.

Tuktoyaktuk Struggles to Bring About Renewable Energyย Transition

For many communities in the north, making a transition to renewable energy generation has been a logical part of adapting to this changingย environment.

However in Tuktoyaktuk, attempts to significantly reduce their reliance on diesel have fallen short soย far.

Nasogaluak explained, โ€œthe community had a proposal for a wind farm a few years back, but they couldnโ€™t get a good purchasing agreement with the territorial power corporation to put power back into the grid. So that wasย lost.โ€

But dealing with adversity and adapting has been a long-standing part of the communityโ€™sย history.

โ€œAs the river silted up going back five, six seven hundred years ago, the beluga no longer went as far up the river, so our community gradually moved north to where we are nowโ€ Nasogaluakย said.

โ€œOur people have experienced so much change, we are very adaptable. But when it comes to infrastructure itโ€™s hard for us to deal with because we have limited capacity to help our peopleย move.โ€

โ€œWeโ€™ve come to a modern way of living now and it costs a lot more money to move a house from one place to another. Weโ€™re running into those climate issues where we have to adapt and move. If weโ€™re building new infrastructure, itโ€™s being built further inlandย now.โ€

The potential impacts and opportunities presented by the new all-weather highway are challenging to predict when the very foundation of communities like Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk are threatened by melting permafrost and the effects of climate change, which disproportionately impact theย north.

โ€œWeโ€™re adapting by pulling our infrastructure inland, but we need to mitigate some areas that we have to protect. We have a cemetery that we need to ensure doesnโ€™t erode any further into the Beaufortโ€ saidย Nasogaluak.

Tuktoyaktuk cemetery. Photo: Matt Jacques for DeSmogย Canada.

As the Inuvik-Tuk ice road melts for the final time, the importance of ongoing research to inform future infrastructure investment and community decision-making could not be moreย clear.

โ€œEven if society stabilizes the climate at 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius in the coming decades, the Inuvik area will be much warmer than this,โ€ Marshย said.

โ€œAt 4 to 6 degrees Celsius or more, it will be thousands of years before conditions return to current or pre-industrialย levels.โ€

โ€œAs a result, the permafrost will continue to thaw and the massive buried ice continue to melt,โ€ Marsh said. โ€œThis will have serious, but poorly understood, consequences for at least a few hundred years.โ€

Image: Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk ice road. Photo: Matt Jacques for DeSmogย Canada.

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