‘Facing $50,000 for one heating season is terrifying’

Residents in Norman Wells have been dealing with skyrocketing fuel prices since resupply barges to the Sahtu community were cancelled this past summer.

Soaring costs prompted municipal officials to declare a humanitarian local state of emergency earlier this month and ask for territorial and federal help, as people reported facing monthly heating bills of $8,000 or more.

Imperial Oil, the town’s lone fuel supplier, said the costs were the result of extra fees to ship fuel by air with the barges gone.

Imperial has since said it will spread the extra fees over time, bringing the monthly cost down slightly – but prices remain significantly higher than they were, and residents are now told to expect those prices for months to come.

Cabin Radio spoke with residents in Norman Wells to learn how the fuel increases are affecting them.

‘No-one here can afford that’

Melanie Harding has lived in Norman Wells for four years and in the Sahtu region for seven years. She has two young children.

Harding had heard rumblings that there would be a fuel increase for a few weeks leading up to October. At the start of October, that was confirmed when local fuel provider SRP put out a notice saying the price of fuel from its supplier – Imperial – would drastically increase.

Though SRP said it didn’t know exactly when the price was going up, Harding said the notice gave people “some time to prepare.”

“They encouraged residents to reach out if they had questions and to fill up, and so there was a big rush to do that and to get prepared for this situation as the weather turns colder,” Harding said.

Her family was one of those that raced to get a top-up – only to discover later that the price had already increased.

When they got their bill, they had been charged more than $5 per litre. A fill-up they had anticipated costing $1,000 was actually going to cost more than $2,700.

It was “like a slap in the face to know that fuel prices were going up that much at all,” Harding said.

“To then learn that they went up without our knowing, and we had filled up with those high prices – thinking we were getting a lower price – was like salt to the wound.”

“Everyone is really stressed out about what this means for us,” Harding said. “It means everything from thinking a little bit more critically about everything that you purchase, what the temperature is set to, making sure you have enough wood, all of those pieces play in.”

She wants more transparency from Imperial Oil about why the fuel price spiked at that point, going down again on October 3 before going back up. “The most confusing thing about this is that Imperial Oil didn’t start air-barging in the fuel until October 9,” Harding said, but there had been “no response from Imperial Oil” about why the price jumped on October 1 and 2.

Imperial Oil has declined Cabin Radio’s requests for an interview about what’s happening in Norman Wells.

On a Facebook page it maintains, the company has said it is providing fuel with “no Imperial profit margin included” but has not addressed specific questions about its pricing.

“As a resident, I really want to see an independent review by government or others of the fuel pricing, because there needs to be oversight. There needs to be accountability,” Harding said.

“It’s upsetting that we’re being held hostage to a corporation that’s driven by profits … in the midst of this crisis that’s having really real, humanitarian impacts on people’s livelihoods, on their mental health and on their well-being,” Harding said.

She says there are “absolutely” households who cannot afford to make it through the winter with fuel prices as they are now.

“We’re a middle-class community for the most part … there’s certainly people in this community that not only can’t afford to pay for fuel for the whole winter, we can’t afford that one fuel fill-up.”

“We’ve just been waiting on pins and needles as a community trying to figure out, like, are our houses going to freeze up? Are people going to freeze or are the Government of the Northwest Territories and the federal government going to step up?”

‘How to afford basic necessities’

Kayla Turner has lived in Norman Wells since March 2020. Her fuel bill used to be $3,000. It’s now projected to increase to $8,000 or even $10,000 per month.

“I’m already overwhelmed from last winter’s $15,000 heating fuel bill, which I’m still paying off,” Turner said. “Now, facing a potential $50,000 for just one heating season is terrifying.”

She describes residents feeling scared and panicked at the realization of the financial burden. The high cost of living, combined with Norman Wells’ isolation – there is no all-weather road to the community – and soaring flight costs, is creating an unbearable atmosphere.

Selling a home is equally daunting, Turner said, as potential buyers are likely deterred by the high heating costs, “which makes it even harder for those of us trying to move on.”

“There’s a pervasive sense of fear and despair in Norman Wells right now,” Turner said. “People are worried about how to afford basic necessities while facing escalating costs … it’s a tough time for everyone here.”

Jonathan Gillingham hasn’t been able to sell his house in Norman Wells.

He lived in the community from 2018 to 2023, and had planned to stay longer in what he describes as “a beautiful community,” until a dream job took him to Yellowknife.

His house has been on the market for almost two years, he says, while he pays the mortgage as well as rent in Yellowknife.

“I can’t get it sold,” Gillingham said.

“It’s not just my house … Norman Wells is a transient community, and a lot of people come and go. It was never really too hard to sell a home from my understanding in the past, but it’s starting to become a harder thing.”

Norman Wells is already a really expensive place to live, Gillingham said. In the past few years, barges being cancelled and the variability of the winter road season have compounded the issue.

“There’s been a lot of negative things happening and making it harder and harder for people to be able to afford things there,” he said.

Gillingham said he and his partner, Bailey, miss the tight-knit community and people of Norman Wells. “My heart breaks for all my fellow community members in the Wells,” he said. “I can’t imagine how anyone will be able to keep the heat on and have food in their cupboards this winter.”

He hopes the fuel cost increase doesn’t cause people to leave, because “it is a beautiful community and it’s a great place to live.”

“But if it’s not affordable,” he acknowledged, “it’s not affordable.”

“It’s minus-50 there in the winter. What are you going to do?” Gillingham said. “It’s a scary, scary situation.”

‘No choice but to leave’

Nicky Richards moved to Norman Wells in 1981, when she was in Grade 2. She has lived in the community her whole life since.

The increase in fuel prices has been “really hard on everybody,” Richards said. “We all are kind-of wondering how we’re going to get through it.”

She and her husband have a wood stove, she said, which helps to heat their home, though they still have to use fuel to heat beneath the house and prevent their pipes from freezing.

They haven’t had to fill their tank yet but did go to the gas station to fill a drum of diesel fuel for $2.84 per litre, “just to have extra, because that would be a lot cheaper than $5 and something,” Richards said.

“One drum is not going to do much for us, but it will keep us topped up … we’re hoping that if we need it, we can just use that instead of having to get the big fill-up.

“We’re just trying to hold out, to see if the government’s going to do something, to see if Imperial is going to do something, to see if the price is going to come down somehow.”

She’s particularly worried about her son, Bryson, who recently got married and bought a house in Norman Wells. On average, her son’s heating bill used to be $1,500. After the price increase, he received a bill for $4,200.

“For a young couple that’s just trying to buy a house and start out and make a life here … it’s really hard,” she said.

She’s also concerned about how businesses in town will fare.

“I feel like a lot of them are just going to say they have to shut their doors because there’s no way that they can recoup their costs,” Richards said, “and then we’ll have no businesses here that are going to provide us any services.”

She worries that residents are eventually “going to have no choice but to leave because they won’t be able to afford it.”

People used to go for “little evening drives” to take their dog out, or to go to Canyon Creek, Richards said. “Now, you just don’t see that. There’s nobody driving around.”

“Everything has gotten quieter and people are just worried.”

‘Wouldn’t be surprised if we see an exodus‘

Josh Ferguson and his wife have lived in Norman Wells since August 2021. She’s a teacher and he runs his own business, Breaking Ice Productions.

“We really love it here,” Ferguson said. “It’s just been a rather stressful fall, winter.”

The air is thick in the community, Ferguson said. “When the news hit, you could really feel it. It was intense … all of this and every day was getting colder, into the negatives.”

Ferguson’s household primarily uses a wood stove and he says he feels “very fortunate” for that.

But he’s concerned about the community.

“The sad thing is that the people who are paying the high prices right now are people who maybe didn’t have the money to fill up their fuel tank in the spring,” Ferguson said.

“You wait all summer and you’re like, ‘OK, we’ll do it right before winter, when we have to. It’ll be $2,000.’ And maybe they’ve been saving up. And then it’s like, no, $5,000. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a massive exodus of people, which then just plunges the region into much more economic hardship. This is dragging on long enough without a fix that it’s feeling like news cycles and attention is moving on, making people feel like there will be no solution.”

He’s concerned about how all of that could impact his livelihood.

“As a small business owner, my business could dry up really fast, mostly because I do media productions,” Ferguson said.

“Typically, the arts are the first thing for people to stop buying when there’s an economic crisis.”

Ferguson believes local officials are doing everything they can to help out and that Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely is “fighting tooth and nail within his ability to do so.” He also notes there are “obviously environmental factors here that are impacting us.”

Ferguson said he doesn’t personally believe Imperial Oil is gouging the town or residents.

“There’s no blame in my mind there,” Ferguson said.

“They’re a business, they can’t just eat the cost … but regardless of exactly how it all pans out, it doesn’t feel to me that the GNWT is assuming its responsibility as a governing body to make sure that people [who] live within this are taken care of.

“It feels like the GNWT has an axe to grind with Imperial and therefore the residents are paying the price,” Ferguson said.

Meanwhile, the window that was available before the weather grew colder has “already passed.”