A fishing boat sits on the bank of the Mackenzie River in Northwest Territories on Sept. 30. Low water levels have left barges unable to traverse the river.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
The small Northwest Territories town of Norman Wells sits on the shores of the Mackenzie River – a vital lifeline for food, fuel and other supplies.
But low water levels have left barges unable to traverse the river, and warming temperatures have shortened the window for the ice road that forms each winter, leaving the community – about 685 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife – reliant on planes to fly everything in. The resulting cost-of-living crisis has the about 800 residents of Norman Wells scrambling to cover skyrocketing prices of groceries and fuel.
This week, they saw some relief when Imperial Oil Ltd. IMO-T cut the price of home heating fuel and gasoline.
The oil company is essentially absorbing a chunk of the cost to fly fuel into Norman Wells for the time being, and rolling it out over a longer period. The portion of the heating oil price to cover air transportation costs will be set at $1.69 a litre, down from $3.38 a litre, Imperial said in a statement.
But the transportation component will stay at the $1.69/litre level once the ice road opens and the cost to get fuel to the town drops. The ice road usually is in operation from late January or early February until early April.
On Tuesday, the cost of home heating fuel at the local wholesale depot had dropped from more than $5 a litre to $3.32 a litre – “still a wicked price,” Mayor Frank Pope said in an interview, but it’s a relief, especially when residents are trying to fill the 1,000-litre oil tanks that heat their homes.
“I had a young fella just got married, bought his first house and went there to top his fuel tank off – it was $4,200. So how in the hell can you eat and stay warm at the same time?”
The problem started in the summer of 2023 when Mackenzie River levels dropped to then-record lows, leaving barges that usually haul fuel and groceries unable to navigate the waterway. Instead, heating fuel had to be flown in, increasing the price from just under $2 per litre to more than $5.
Groceries had to be flown in as well, which in turn sent those prices through the roof, Mr. Pope said.
Over the winter, town supplies came in via ice road. The province increased the road’s capacity, but its assumption that barges would be able to traverse the Mackenzie come summer turned out to be wrong.
River levels instead set new record lows; barges couldn’t even leave their hub in Great Slave Lake.
Once again, everything had to be flown in.
“We’re in the midst of what I will call a perfect storm,” Mr. Pope said. “Climate change, global warming – call it whatever you want. It’s bad.”
The Northwest Territories government first spoke with Imperial about the fuel cost crisis in the summer, when it became apparent that refueling Norman Wells via barge wasn’t going to happen.
Caroline Wawzonek, Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance and Infrastructure, said in an interview that the government had a “strong conversation” with the company about what the dramatic increase in fuel costs would mean for the town.
“We were basically saying, ‘Look, we need some solutions. Going from $1.97 to $5.17, $5.25 for this small, isolated community is not going to work. People are not going to be able to heat their homes,’” Ms. Wawzonek said.
And while the price cut this week is a relief, she said, “it’s not really solving the crisis.”
The territorial government serves a population of just 45,000 people, but services a region that is the size of Ontario. That makes it challenging to step in on its own, Ms. Wawzonek said.
The province has reached out to Ottawa for interim relief, and Ms. Wawzonek is hopeful that support will come soon.
“We’ve gone to the federal government to point out that this is largely a climate-related event, and in a lot of other climate-related events – whether it’s droughts on the prairies or forest fires – they are generally there to help support provincial territorial governments,” she said.
But the ultimate solution, she said, is a road transportation network similar to that in southern parts of Canada.
“Most of Southern Canada doesn’t necessarily rely on fuel the same way that we do. We’re not on the North American energy grid. We don’t necessarily have access in most communities to any other forms of fuel or electricity. Things run on diesel up here,” she said.
“That’s why this is so critical.”
Mr. Pope has also spoken with Ottawa, last year addressing the Senate’s Transport and Communications Committee as part of a study about the impacts of climate change on critical infrastructure.
He’d like to see more help to alleviate the skyrocketing cost of living in Norman Wells due to transportation costs, which he worries is affecting the mental health of people in his community as they agonize over mortgages, groceries and heating.
The town’s so-called “Kitchen Cabinet” – set up during the COVID pandemic as a place for residents to drop off food or to pick up something they might need – has now become a full-fledged foodbank that runs entirely on donations.
“Are we going to be evacuated when all the housing freezes up? Is that when they’re going to take notice of our situation?” Mr. Pope said Tuesday.
“We’ve got to find a way to get it down.”