The NWT’s education minister says she’s frustrated by the failure to bring modular classrooms into Colville Lake this past winter road season.
The Sahtu community was originally due to receive three modular buildings – two classrooms and a bathroom – in February 2024, to act as an interim solution while a new school is built.
But the modulars missed that winter road season and then missed the 2024-25 winter road, too. (Colville Lake is not accessible by road year-round.)
The CBC reported earlier this year that Edmonton-based Cube Construction Ltd had hired a shipping company to bring its modulars north but, according to an NWT government spokesperson, the shipping firm subsequently ran out of capacity to make the delivery, which requires specialist equipment.
“I share the member’s frustration and the community’s frustration on this one,” education minister Caitlin Cleveland said on Tuesday when questioned by Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely about the further delay.
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“We were anticipating shipping of these units this previous winter road season,” the minister said.
“We had worked diligently with the Department of Infrastructure and the company to get this done, and were then advised in February of 2025 that the contractors’ transportation company would no longer be able to deliver the units during that winter road season.”
Cleveland said it remains “the company’s responsibility to ship the units to Colville Lake.”
That is expected to take place during the next winter road season, though precise logistics were not discussed in the legislature on Tuesday.
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Colville Lake’s old school is described by those who use it as beautiful but cramped and noisy.
McNeely – setting out the urgency of getting the logistics right this winter – said he recognized that the 645-km winter road journey to Colville Lake is “very challenging at best,” never mind the journey that must first take place from Edmonton to Wrigley.
“This coming transportation season, we cannot afford to let our community and the children down,” he said.
