Plane crash renews calls for all-season road to Fond du Lac

The plane crash outside Fond du Lac this week should be “a wake-up call” for the provincial government to invest in all-season roads into the province’s most remote communities, says the MLA who represents northwest Saskatchewan.

“It’s always just an expensive, dangerous proposition when you leave only one form of travel in an area,” said Athabasca MLA Buckley Belanger.

“There should be more investments in northern roads, especially in the Athabasca Basin.”

A plane carrying 22 passengers and three crew members crashed Wednesday evening moments after taking off from a small airport in the northern Saskatchewan community of Fond du Lac. No one died, but some people were seriously injured and needed to be airlifted to Saskatoon for medical attention.

The cause of the crash has not yet been determined. A Transportation Safety Board investigation is underway.

Fond du Lac Chief Louis Mercredi said Thursday the crash has left everyone in the community “traumatized.”

People can drive in and out of Fond du Lac in the middle of winter when an ice road is operational — or in the summer, boats are often used — but for the rest of the year, the community can only be accessed by air.

Now, Mercredi said some people from Fond du Lac are scared to get on a plane.

“We are in desperate need for an all-season road,” he said.

Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron has spent years lobbying the federal and provincial governments for all-season roads into the communities around Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin. He said he hopes the plane crash helps drive home his message that these roads are necessary.

“It brings more awareness for all levels of government to say, ‘Geez, these First Nations have been advocating for a road for many, many years. I think we’d better pay attention. But more importantly, we’ve got to act on it.’ ”

Doug Wakabayashi, a spokesman for the provincial Ministry of Highways, said the province has many projects competing for limited dollars and building a road to Fond du Lac would be a “very significant” investment.

“The north, it’s a challenging place to build roads. Just because of the geography, there’s rock outcrop, it’s Canadian Shield, there’s muskeg, there’s things like that,” he said. “We face a lot of demands for both new and upgraded infrastructure across the province and we also have to balance those demands against the need to rehabilitate, maintain the entire 26,000-kilometre provincial highway system so we have to prioritize against needs all across the province.”

Wakabayashi said it would likely take “a few years” and at least $100 million to build an all-season road into Fond du Lac.