New roads to bring opportunities to the north

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The provincial government has announced plans to build an improved road system in the north.

Roads to Prosperity-Saskatchewan's Northern Economic Infrastructure Strategy will see $65.5 million invested in improvements to the transportation infrastructure of northern Saskatchewan.

Part of the strategy is a promise to develop all-weather roads in the Athabasca basin.

An improved transportation system, Premier Lorne Calvert explained when he announced the strategy on Nov. 23, will not only bring new economic development opportunities to the north, it will also provide those living in remote communities with more of a connection to the rest of the province.

"Currently, some of our northern communities have no access, or very limited road access,"

Calvert said. "For example, Wollaston Lake's ground access to the rest of the province is by a barge that can only operate when the lake is ice-free or by an ice road that can only operate when the ice has frozen to a sufficient depth. The result is this community only has access to reliable ground transportation for four or five months per year. Many other northern communities rely on sub-standard gravel roads that provide the only link from their community to the rest of the province. This situation makes access to vital services-like health care and education- a real challenge. And in many communities, it results in exorbitant prices for basic goods."

In addition to improving roads the strategy aims to build capacity in the north by providing northerners with the skills they need to be involved in planning, development and operation of the new northern road system and to take advantage of the economic development opportunities that will follow.

Geoff Gay is project manager with the Athabasca Economic Development and Training Corporation, a non-profit organization formed by Fond du Lac, Black Lake and Hatchet Lake First Nations and the communities of Stony Rapids, Camsell Portage, Uranium City and Wollaston Lake. He said the projects to be undertaken under the strategy will include construction of an all-weather road from Highway 905 to Wollaston Lake, a distance of about 105 km; upgrading the road from Points North to Stony Rapids from a seasonal road to an all-weather road, a distance of about 185 km; and building an all-weather road from Stony Rapids to the south shore of Fond du Lac, a distance of about 85 km, with a short crossing over Lake Athabasca to the community of Fond du Lac.

Improved roads will mean a lot of opportunities will open up for people in the north, both economic and otherwise, Gay said.

"I don't know specifically what each individual's going to do to capitalize on it, but I do know that there's 1.6 million pounds of fish in Lake Athabasca that could be commercially fished each year and it's not. There is a potential for increased exploration in uranium if all-weather road access is improved. And the main thing that's going to affect every resident is really that the price of goods should go down in their community. Four litres of milk is $15.50 in Fond du Lac and it's $3.20 in Prince Albert."

Having all-weather road access will mean now isolated communities will no longer have to rush to get all their supplies in during the few months they have access to the rest of the province.

"There's always these rushes to get building materials in and get different supplies in on the ice roads," Gay said. "Another example is almost every year, Fond du Lac seems to run out of fuel because it's hard to predict how much fuel they need for two, three months at a time. So they won't have to do that."

The environmental assessment process for the road projects has already begun and design work will begin soon, Gay said, but the improvements aren't going to happen overnight. It will likely take between five and seven years to complete all three projects.

While the current federal election campaign has meant there will be no federal funding for the road iprovement projects forthcoming in the near future, the projects can still go ahead, Gay said.

"We're being told that they will not tie the money to federal funding, meaning that they're not going to say 'We will only put money in if the federal government puts money in.' They are going to contribute a certain amount to the roads, which they feel is probably around the 50 per cent or so mark, and then if nobody else comes on board, they'll just proceed to spend that money on whatever we can do for that amount of money in the region."

Once the election is over, Gay believes federal funding will be funneled into the project. A few years back, the feds agreed to commit money to the road improvements, but things were stalled when there was no offer from the province to do the same.

"So now we just think getting the province on board was a huge step and in the next couple of months we expect that the federal government's going to come on board."