Ice road worries as warm weather continues

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug Chief Donny Morris’s worries about running out of fuel due to poor winter road conditions are over, for now.
“We should be getting fuel trucks later on today,” Morris said on Feb. 21, noting the community was down to a couple of inches of fuel. “They left last night.”
Although Morris is relieved at the moment, he is still concerned about whether his community will receive the 2.1 million litres of fuel required for the upcoming year before the winter roads shut down for the year.
“When you look at this week and three or four weeks in March, it’s a tight schedule where I’m trying to coordinate all travel with all the communities for housing supplies too,” Morris said. “It’s going to be a lot of grabbing, trying to get your gas and your fuel. It’s up to the suppliers how they are going to balance everything out.”
Morris first raised his concerns Feb. 17 after the community lost a winter road groomer through the ice.
“One of our groomers got to the side too much and went through the ice,” Morris said. “Fortunately, our driver Leo made it out.”
The groomer went through the ice on a bay on the mouth of a river about half way between KI and Bearskin Lake.
“At this date (Feb. 17), nothing has come into our community because of the warm weather,” Morris said. “Turn around season is fast approaching, so I don’t know how much of a road we will have to haul our gas, fuel and housing materials.”
Morris said the weather conditions have been too warm this winter to haul in supplies over the winter road.
“You can’t drag at night to harden the road because it doesn’t freeze at night,” Morris said.
Muskrat Dam was also concerned on Feb. 17 about the lack of ice on Magiss Lake, which is a 14-kilometre long lake located about half way along the winter road between Weagamow and Muskrat Dam.
“We haven’t had ice build up because of the warm weather,” said Muskrat Dam Chief Gordon Beardy. “We plowed it 110 feet wide about a week-and-a-half ago, but there hasn’t been enough cold weather.”
Beardy said the winter road crew has been flooding certain areas on Magiss Lake where there is only 24 inches of ice.
“We’re only getting half loads,” Beardy said. “We need to do full loads. We need to get moving here.”