With the abandonment of the barge season, how important is the Buffalo 737?

“We’re really going to have to change the way we think about business. »

Joshua Earls won’t rely on barges to restock his Rampart Rentals grocery and hardware store in Norman Wells this summer. Who knows, maybe he’ll never rely on barges again.

For a second consecutive year, summer resupply of barges between Hay River and Norman Wells is interrupted. In 2023, the last barges have not sailed. This year, record water levels on the Mackenzie River mean there will be no barges.

“That’s normally how we got our goods here,” Earls said.

“Now we’re going to have to use the Buffalo air barge.”

Normally, losing the entire barge season would be cataclysmic for the Sahtu region and communities like Norman Wells, Tulita and Fort Good Hope.

This summer, the loss of the barges is still a bad thing – Sahtu Secretariat President Charles McNeely told CBC’s The National on Friday that it would “probably set us back a year” in terms of construction projects – but a few factors soften the blow.

The first is the Buffalo Airways Air Barge, announced earlier this month.

Buffalo is already a specialist in freight transportation throughout the country. Famous for leveraging World War II-era planes to do much of this work, the Northwest Territories airline recently purchased its first jet, a Boeing 737 freighter.

This Boeing 737 begins regular refueling flights to transport goods and supplies from Yellowknife to Norman Wells – at discounted rates where possible. The airline is being praised for this decision.

The Sahtu Secretariat said it had sent Buffalo a letter of appreciation, while Earls said the prices seemed “fairly reasonable and are honestly going to help significantly with the overall Sahtu resupply.” “. Area MPP Danny McNeely praised the company in the legislature.

Earls estimates that using Buffalo will end up costing 25 to 30 percent more than a regular barge, which he says is “not as bad as you might think” for the move to air freight.

“Buffalo is really coming to save the day here,” he said.

How does Buffalo do it?

Normally, the Buffalo Boeing 737 operates overnight cargo flights between Edmonton and Yellowknife. This cargo is then distributed on small flights from Buffalo and transported to various communities in the Northwest Territories.

“During the day, there are charter flights out of Yellowknife and Edmonton,” Sandy Macpherson, Buffalo’s director of business development, said of the 737. “We have a second crew that can operate to Norman Wells and we can make two trips during the period. day, no problem.

In one fell swoop, Macpherson said the plane could make eight to 10 trips a week to the Sahtu, unloading up to 400,000 pounds of cargo. In practice, he believes demand will not reach that level and flights once or twice a week are more likely.

“We definitely get a few calls and emails. We will see what comes of it,” he said on Thursday.

Macpherson said the situation is aided by a few factors. The type of cargo transported by barge is often not urgently needed or expires quickly, otherwise it would not have been sent by river barge in the first place. This means it’s time to make other arrangements.

“For years, Buffalo used Hay River as a hub. We know customers who need to ship on barges, and often they ship via our other services as well. They are mostly the same people we have worked with for years,” he said.

“These are goods that people plan well in advance and hope to move with as little money as possible. We can’t match barge rates for all goods – we need to make sure costs are covered – but it’s the best we can do. So far we have heard mostly positive responses.

Low water is “integrated into planning”

The plane will not solve all the problems.

Building materials, for example, will remain a problem. Building trusses do not fit in the cargo hold of a Boeing 737. No heavy equipment or anything larger than a Ford Explorer, although some elements could potentially be broken down into components and then reassembled upon arrival.

But the plane is not the only solution either, Infrastructure Minister Caroline Wawzonek told the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.

Before the 737 became an option, Wawzonek said, the GNWT and communities had tried to avoid some of the freight traffic congestion months ago, during the winter driving season, because the The probability of low water this summer was very high. (Much of the territory is in the grip of a multi-year drought, and by the time the winter road was opened, the absence of the huge volumes of snow needed to alleviate this problem was evident.)

Wawzonek said having low water levels “built into our planning” for the recent winter road season should prevent another fuel shortage in the Sahtu, like the one experienced in some communities six years ago. month. Having some barges leave Tuktoyaktuk and head south to Fort Good Hope, rather than north up the Mackenzie, would also help, she said.

“At Délı̨nę, Colville Lake, they have been additionally restocked so they can access winter restocking in 2025 if they have to,” Wawzonek told the Legislature.

“It wasn’t our first choice, but we already knew it was going to be a tough year…right now the communities the government is responsible for have enough (fuel) to get through the winter season or will receive some. their restocking this year.

A “crazy busy” 2025 winter road?

Earls said the winter road season in early 2025 will “become very vital” to Rampart Rentals’ operations.

“We will have about six weeks to move a year’s worth of supplies,” he said.

“The winter road will start to get very busy. We simply can’t rely on barges anymore.”

But scientists’ predictions and recent experience suggest that winter road seasons may not be very reliable either.

“How long will our winter roads last? We were lucky this year,” Norman Wells Mayor Frank Pope said. (The Mackenzie Valley winter highway linking the Sahtu to the south was open a little longer than usual last winter.)

“Our cost of living in the Sahtu is intolerable. We can no longer accept increases. The prices of groceries, heating oil and gasoline are ridiculously high,” the mayor told Cabin Radio.

“Accelerated construction of the all-weather road linking Wrigley to Norman Wells should be the number one priority for the federal and territorial governments.

For Pope and others, like Sahtu Secretariat advisor Todd McCauley, the disappearing barge season is why building a permanent Mackenzie Valley road is their priority.

“Obviously we’re going to see an increase in the costs of groceries, fuel and the cost of living here,” McCauley said.

“People appreciate the fact that we support this project. Everyone supports the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

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