Cancelled barge cuts off Arctic hamlets from supplies

Three Arctic communities fear they’ve been cut off from crucial winter supplies and other necessities after a government-owned company cancelled an annual barge run.

Marine Transportation Services Ltd., owned by the Northwest Territories, says there’s too much sea ice to move the scheduled barge to the central Arctic communities of Paulatuk, Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay.

That’s left millions of dollars worth of supplies such as groceries, construction materials and municipal equipment stranded on the docks in Tuktoyaktuk with no way to get them to the 3,000-plus people who need them.

“All our total next year’s worth of supplies are on that barge — lifts and lifts of cabinet materials, rolls and rolls of Arborite and flooring,” said Peter Laube of Kalvik Enterprises in Cambridge Bay.

“We’ve got these huge jobs all over.”

The sea lift resupply is an annual rite all over the Arctic. Communities without land links order a year’s worth of everything — from diapers to canned pop — from one of several barge companies that operate in the North.

For decades, the central Arctic was served by Northern Transportation Company Ltd., which sent barges from the end of the road in Hay River, N.W.T., up the Mackenzie River and eastward along the coast. That ended in 2016, when the company went bankrupt and the service was taken over by the territorial government.

Last year, Marine Transportation Services carried more than 37 million litres of fuel and more than 10,000 tonnes of cargo to communities and industry. A spokeswoman said the company is trying to find an alternative option for this year’s deliveries.

Government officials from the territory did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

John Holland, senior administrative officer for the hamlet of Paulatuk, said the company didn’t even send notice that the sea lift had been cancelled.

“We’ve heard indirectly it was supposed to be Sept. 28. Then, we heard maybe October, but we’ve heard nothing directly. I had $2,000 worth of groceries on that barge.”

Holland said his community has badly needed heavy equipment on the barge.

“I don’t know why they couldn’t have arranged an icebreaker,” Holland said.