Mackenzie Valley Highway ‘comes with problems but we need it’

Residents on the Mackenzie Valley Highway’s proposed route are wary of it but many ultimately want the project to go ahead, recent community meetings suggest.

Community consultations were held in October 2024. Draft reports from those meetings were made public in mid-December.

If it is eventually funded and built, the $1 billion-plus highway will connect Wrigley – where Highway 1 currently ends – to Norman Wells via Tulita. It would offer the first year-round road access to those communities, with residents being told prices will come down as a result.

In the most recent consultations, Sahtu residents broadly agreed the highway would bring down the cost of living even as they fear it will open up the region to exploitation by the likes of bootleggers and drug dealers.

“The big elephant in the room is the amount of hard drugs being distributed in the far North and we don’t even have a highway yet, it’s just on the winter road,” resident Jay Horesay was quoted as saying at a meeting in Wrigley.

Similar concerns were voiced by residents of Tuktoyaktuk and Whatì in the past before other all-season highways connected those communities. Police in Whatì subsequently reported a “significant increase” in crime a year after a highway to the community opened.

“We need this. If you look around here, you can see it. We do need it,” one Tulita resident was quoted as saying in draft reports published to a public registry. “But we also have to come up with a way to protect our people, our land and our culture.”

The reports are based on a series of discussions attended by local residents and officials.

In Norman Wells, a summary states, “participants focused heavily on the need for the project, despite the potential impacts that may come with it.”

Norman Wells took a large economic hit from the failure of the summer 2024 barge season. Fuel prices spiked in the fall and have remained elevated. The GNWT has stepped in with millions of dollars in assistance.

The Norman Wells report notes residents who attended meetings about the highway urged officials “to accelerate the environmental assessment and construction processes.”

In Tulita, according to a draft report, residents heard the highway might not be built in the next decade and felt that was “too long for community members to weather a high cost of living.”

‘We’re so isolated’

At Tulita’s community session, Chief Frank Andrew said the next generation needed to decide if the highway was worth it.

“That’s our highway right now, the Mackenzie River. It brings everything into us,” he said according to a draft report.

“I think about that, and I think about what the Elders were saying. I’m getting a little older now, and I don’t know if I will use the highway. That’s why I want the young people to make the decision.”

At the same session, a Tulita youth identified as Hailey said: “The highway, we need it. It does come with a lot of problems, but we really need it now.

“Climate change is not a joke any more, stuff is changing every day that we have no control over. We’re so isolated and the highway is really the only option that we have.”

Chief Andrew told the meeting that support for the highway in Tulita had evolved since a Dene Nation-backed gathering in 2000 about the proposal, which has been on the table for decades.

According to the report, Andrew said Tulita residents were not in favour of the highway a quarter of a century ago.

“Today, he said, is a different story,” the report asserts. “The community has undergone many environmental, cultural, and social changes in the last two decades such that the community must look to an alternate and dependable way of receiving essential supplies and materials.”

Route concerns

In the Dehcho, which already has an all-season highway that would mark the entryway to the Mackenzie Valley Highway, residents have strong feelings about the project.

The Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation recently told the NWT government it must do more to consult with the community and offer supports if Fort Simpson is to become a waypoint for a much larger highway network stretching north.

At a community consultation in Wrigley, a report states, Chief Jamie Moses said the new highway needed to offer “economic reconciliation.”

The report says Chief Moses supported the new highway on the grounds that the Pehdzeh Ki First Nation stood to benefit. Others, though, felt those benefits might not last long.

“If you think the road is for the goodwill of the people, don’t kid yourself. The road is actually out to get the last of the riches,” resident and former chief Tim Lennie was quoted as saying.

Some residents in Wrigley urged the GNWT to consider changing the proposed route of the highway.

“The community is urging the developer to reroute eastward into the foothills,” a report from the community consultation states.

“According to participants, this higher route would avoid the soft clay soils, slumping, and eroding riverbanks of the Mackenzie River.

“The soil along the proposed route is mainly comprised of clay, which can be described as a ‘soup’ in the warmer months. In the winter, the clay deep freezes and becomes like chunks of concrete.”

The report adds: “Reconciliation means involving the community in decision-making processes … community involvement in the design and maintenance of the Mackenzie Valley Highway is crucial.”

At Tulita’s meeting, GNWT representative Seth Bohnet was quoted as telling residents that the route had not yet been finalized.

“Our goal is to try and follow the existing winter road alignment as much as we can in order to minimize new disturbance and environmental impacts,” the report quoted Bohnet as saying.

“We continue to engage and discuss areas where the winter road isn’t appropriate as an all-season road.”

Less support in Délı̨nę

The October sessions were held by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board and documented by Joanne Barnaby Consulting and Thorpe Consulting Services.

A Fort Simpson session had been planned but was postponed following a death in the community, organizers said.

While the all-season road won’t connect to the Sahtu community of Délı̨nę, a consultation was nevertheless held there as the highway could be expected to have an impact on its 600 residents.

“The general sentiment expressed by most participants of this community session in Délı̨nę is that people do not support the project, especially if it were to come to their community,” a draft report states.

“Elders are not against the Mackenzie Highway itself, so long as it does not come to the community.”

Read the draft reports: Norman Wells | Tulita | Délı̨nę | Wrigley

Ɂekw’ahtide Danny Gaudet was quoted as saying that Elders understand the need for the highway to address supply routes in to the Sahtu, “otherwise the cost of living will go through the roof as we’re seeing right now in Norman Wells.”

Resident Frank Elemie, though, was quoted as saying that a highway would be built “to take our resources, our oil, our water, our wildlife. You’re grabbing that away from us, that’s our future of native people.”

“I want to see my community with our own economy. In the old days, I saw my grandfather hunting. I want to see students go to school. Leave us alone, don’t devour our land for money,” Elemie said.

“Don’t build that highway, that’s only for white people’s benefit.”