Would you take a bus between Yellowknife and the South Slave?

The feasibility of a bus service connecting Yellowknife and Fort Smith – and the communities in between – is being explored.

The Northwest Territories and Nunavut Council of Friendship Centres has launched a survey asking people for feedback about the possibility of a service that would stop in Behchokǫ̀, Fort Providence and Hay River along the way.

“Even when I have to travel to Fort Providence, I have to do that lonely drive. We thought: why don’t we do a feasibility study?” said Chris Pereira, a program manager for the friendship centre council.

Pereira said the possibility of extending the service to Fort Simpson is also being examined.

At the moment, private vehicles or air travel are by far the two most common choices for those trips, though the occasional charter bus – or even a taxi, as a last resort – might be pressed into service along the highway.

A bus route has existed in the past, courtesy of Frontier Coachlines and Greyhound, but hasn’t been a thing for at least a decade.

The chance to create a new bus service came about because Canada’s National Association of Friendship Centres is making a funding program available, Pereira said, to which northern friendship centres can apply.

The feasibility study will assess whether such a service is viable, while the survey is designed to help figure out what residents actually want.

Pereira told Cabin Radio he’s trying to find out how often people travel, how much they spend on gas, and whether they travel alone.

Safety could be one benefit of a bus, he said. Another is emissions.

“It’s a lot of carbon footprint, right?” Pereira said. “We can have public transportation for 20 or 30 people to travel to Yellowknife, rather than driving 20 or 30 cars.”

Pereira has set an initial deadline of May 6 to provide your feedback via the survey, though he says that may be extended. There are gift cards and an iPhone to be won for people who take part.

If the survey suggests a bus service would be valuable, Pereira said the next steps will involve figuring out the funding to acquire a vehicle, then working out how to subsidize the cost of tickets for passengers.

“We are expecting a lot of people to come and help us understand what they think of such a service,” he said.

“If we get a positive result, we’ll definitely go ahead and try to make this happen.”