Because of the climate crisis, half of Canada's 8,000 kms of winter roads could be gone or unusable by 2050 and virtually all of them may be unusable by 2080 as the winters become milder and the ice on these roads thins or disappears, thereby creating major problems for isolated communities, many of which are indigenous, that depend on these roads. One province that is being particularly hard hit by the growing disappearance of ice roads, especially in indigenous communities is Manitoba.
First Nations leaders in Manitoba have called for all-season roads and other support to navigate the winter-road crisis for several decades. The government has increased financial support for road-building, but has not invested in permanent solutions. Photo: Mikaela Mackenzie / Winnipeg Free Press
With warm weather delaying the construction of Manitoba’s winter-road network, the Anisininew Okimawin (also known as the Island Lake Tribal Council) First Nations of Garden Hill, Red Sucker Lake, Wasagamack and St. Theresa Point gathered to warn of a looming crisis.
“The winter road season should be well underway, but temperatures remain unseasonably warm, making them extremely dangerous and unsafe to use,” Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said.
More than 20 communities in Manitoba and nearly 70 northern communities nationwide are fly-in only for most of the year, and rely on a window lasting just six to eight weeks in the winter to import their annual supply of food, fuel, medical supplies, construction materials and other vital infrastructure on a network of roads built from ice and snow. For the 18,000 people living in the Island Lake region 500 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg — and hundreds of kilometres from the nearest paved roads — the delayed start to winter threatened a dire situation. Only a handful of the more than 800 truckloads of goods expected to travel north each year had made it to this cluster of communities by the beginning of February. Several roads had not yet been built; others were newly constructed but already deteriorating under unseasonably warm weather and rare bouts of rain. With temperatures uncertain, no one was sure when the road network would be finished — or how long it would be able to stay frozen.
Unseasonable winter weather is becoming more common across the country but especially in the North, where temperatures are rising at roughly triple the global average, permafrost is melting and the winter-road network, described as “a lifeline” for remote nations, is becoming increasingly difficult to build and maintain. Researchers estimate the winter-road season is already getting shorter and will continue to shrink with each passing decade. According to projections from the Canadian Climate Institute, more than half of the country’s winter roads are expected to become unviable by the 2050s and almost all winter roads will be unusable by the 2080s. With few clear-cut solutions, many remote First Nations wait anxiously each fall for the cold to come. They are fighting to adapt to a rapidly changing climate that threatens to make food, housing and infrastructure more difficult to access for tens of thousands of residents.
Some roads are constructed over swamps, muskeg and permafrost, while others are built over frozen lakes, rivers and creeks. Some are constructed by local contractors, others hire crews and equipment from farther south. Many are funded by provincial, territorial and federal governments, but some are paid for by local municipalities or private companies.
In Manitoba, about 30,000 people rely on winter roads each year. The network comprises more than 20 road segments spanning over 2,200 kilometres. Most open sometime in late December or early January and last an average 50 to 55 days until spring arrives in March or early April. Each year, the roads play host to about 3,000 semi-trucks and countless other seasonal travellers.
According to Doug Jansen, Manitoba’s northern winter roads manager, any number of unpredictable weather conditions can interrupt road construction. If the temperatures rise over -5 C, trucks are barred from travelling. If it rains, or warm temperatures persist, the roads can start to melt. Jansen said there was very little snow this winter in northern Manitoba — and without snow, which acts as the asphalt of the winter-road system, crews had little material with which to build. ...
Panic started setting in for the Island Lake communities in January. In years past, the cold weather would typically arrive in November, roadwork would be well underway by Christmas and trucks would be lumbering up the ice routes come the new year.This year, according to Anisininew Okimawin Grand Chief Scott Harper, road construction had yet to get underway in January. Temperatures had averaged around -5 C in December — a far cry from historic averages of around -20 C — and despite a couple weeks of mid-January cold, temperatures climbed again toward the end of the month. “The warm weather came, it started raining and that deteriorated the road,” Harper said in an interview. “That really put us in panic mode.” ...
The James Bay winter road in Ontario, which connects three First Nations to Moosonee, opened late this year. Already in early March, the road had to be closed due to warm weather. Other communities have struggled to get their roads open to heavy traffic at all. Temagami First Nation, located about 90 kilometres northeast of Sudbury, uses the southernmost ice road in Ontario. The community of 250 people, located on Bear Island on Lake Temagami, uses an ice road across the water to access essential services during the winter. This year, the road opened to car traffic late, in mid-February. Before that, the nation had to shuttle community members across on snowmobiles....
More than 35 per cent of First Nations people live in overcrowded housing in Manitoba — the highest proportion in the country — while about 30 per cent live in homes that need repairs. But construction supplies for housing or, in the case of one Island Lake community, a new school, are too large to be loaded onto planes. In 2011, more than 170 tonnes of construction material, 15 housing units and two community centres were transported on Ontario’s winter roads. Without the road network, new housing is near-impossible to build....
For years, many remote First Nations in Manitoba have asked governments for support funding and building all-season roads to reduce the reliance on the winter-road network. An all-season highway to Berens River was built in 2017 at a cost of $200 million, extending about 70 kilometres from Bloodvein, as part of a provincial commitment to help with the winter-road crisis. But replacing all-winter roads with permanent links has been dismissed for decades as too costly or complex on the remote landscape.
The Canadian Climate Institute estimates it would cost the Northwest Territories about $2 billion over 20 years to replace winter roads with all-season routes — “an unprecedented level of infrastructure spending.” Despite the hefty price tag, the Island Lake nations presented the provincial government a proposal at the end of January to extend the all-season road to St. Theresa Point, replacing the often unreliable 250-kilometre stretch of winter road at an estimated cost of more than $500 million. ...
Grand Chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Garrison Settee said communities won’t back down until there are long-term solutions and commitments in place. It’s 2024 now and we cannot just be reacting to crises that happen because of the winter roads,” Settee said. “It’s not acceptable anymore to have our First Nations trapped in their communities without having access to winter roads.”