First Nation says it can’t get reliable delivery due to inadequate runway
SASKATOON Two years after a plane crash near his home claimed a life, Fond du Lac Denesuline First Nation Chief Louie Mercredi is once again calling for a runway upgrade he says the fly-in community of roughly 800 desperately needs.
Mercredi said the 3,800-metre runway’s short length and the lack of modern radar technology at the adjacent airport means vital supplies like medication aren’t reliably arriving.
“Our people are not getting their medication on time,” he said. “There are some of my members who are stuck without taking diabetes pills or insulin for 10, 12 days at a time.”
Mercredi said the runway was designed for small, nine-seat piston-powered planes in the 1970s. Today, 50-seat planes regularly land there. Ninety-five per cent of travel in and out of the community is by plane — but because of the runway’s small size, they regularly fail to land.
“People are desperate. They’re travelling on the lake now, trying to get out to get their basic needs,” Mercredi said.
In December 2017, a plane carrying 25 people crashed shortly after taking off from Fond du Lac, killing 19-year-old passenger Arson Fern Jr.
While the Transportation Safety Board attributed the crash to ice on the aircraft wings, Mercredi said it illustrates the need for a larger runway and a more sophisticated radar system to help planes land and take off from the small community.
Since then, the federal government spent more than $12 million to resurface the existing runway and install new lighting systems, supplemented by roughly $2 million from the provincial government. Mercredi said he wants to see the provincial government fully match the federal contribution.
Last year, Mercredi applied to the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Plan, in which the province selects priority projects and asks the federal government to fund them. Saskatchewan stands to receive more than $115.9 million for rural and remote northern infrastructure under that program this year.
However, the province said Mercredi’s application was incomplete. He said this was because his community does not have the needed experts, like engineers, to fill out the application’s various categories.
Officials say the province is now collaborating with the First Nation to fulfil the application.
“We want to put forward the best possible application we can to Ottawa,” highways and infrastructure ministry spokesman David Horth said.
Dr. Ibrahim Khan, a medical health officer with Indigenous Services Canada, echoed the chief’s calls for an improved runway, though he had not heard reports of people in Fond du Lac being unable to access medication. In case of emergency, he said there are measures to transport people from Fond du Lac to Saskatoon for medical care.
“We certainly encourage the chief to contact us and sort that out if there is any difficulty in accessing urgent medication this holiday season,” Khan said.
The Northern Inter-tribal Health Authority did not respond to a request for comment by press time.