It’s 2024. Maybe your fridge is a smart fridge. Your car has an app. Your TV talks to you. AI wants your job. And now, introducing the smart grader shed.
Parks Canada and the NWT’s Department of Infrastructure have rigged up a Starlink dish at a roadside pullout on Highway 5, 100 km from any community and otherwise about as bleak a communications blindspot as you could find.
For the most part, highways in the NWT offer no cell service or even FM radio coverage, never mind data.
Nor is there any network of emergency landline phones placed along the route, so drivers in trouble have limited options: carry a satellite device (and a means to power it if need be), limp on to the next community, or rely on a passing vehicle for help.
Depending on the season, the time of day and the highway, you could be waiting hours for the next vehicle to show up.
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The Starlink dish at the Highway 5 pullout may only solve that problem in a highly specific area, but it’s a start – allowing travellers, Parks Canada said by email, to “check in with friends and families or report emergencies or road issues” when they previously couldn’t for hours on end.
Of course, you have to know the grader shed is web-capable while passing it.
For future reference, the coordinates are 60°08’56.3″N 113°34’48.7″W, which works out to this position on a map.
Parks Canada is involved because the highway between Hay River and Fort Smith runs through parts of Wood Buffalo National Park. The GNWT is supplying the site and power, while Parks Canada provided the hardware and internet account.
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“This location was chosen as it is close to the centre of the cellular-free area, and the site offered a convenient and safe pull-off area for motorists who wish to access the service,” Parks Canada stated.
You can connect to the internet at no cost. The password to connect is highway5, Parks Canada said. (The password is posted at the shed, too, because boy would that be frustrating in an emergency if you hadn’t memorized it first.)
“Users will need to be fairly close to the grader shed to use the service,” the federal agency added.
