The Inuit community of Rigolet on the northern coast of Labrador is seen in front of Hamilton Inlet.Darren Calabrese/The Globe and Mail
When the snow starts to fall in Rigolet, a remote coastal town in Newfoundland and Labrador, residents park their cars or trucks in their driveways and hope they can find them again next spring.
There’s no need for winter driving, because there are no roads leaving town. Snowmobiles are the only way to get around for most of the year – and, unless you want to attempt the five-hour trip to Happy Valley-Goose Bay through the woods and over dangerous ice roads, you’re not likely leaving anyway.
But a proposal to build a northern highway connecting Rigolet and a series of coastal communities in Labrador to the rest of the country could change the region’s entire way of life. A road, supporters say, would bring enormous economic benefits, while reducing shipping costs that inflate the prices of food and other essential goods.
“We’d finally be connected to the rest of Canada,” said Charlotte Wolfrey, a former mayor of Rigolet, a mostly Inuit town of about 300 people. “It would change everything.”
Labrador is twice the size of England, but it’s home to fewer than 30,000 people. Its enormous tourism potential has long been limited by a lack of access. Unless they come by seasonal boat or plane, most visitors aren’t able to see northern stretches of coastal Labrador, where Inuit and Innu culture mixes with that of Moravian missionaries. The ruggedly beautiful coastline is marked by national historic sites, and by Torngat Mountains National Park.
In November, the federal and provincial governments announced a pre-feasibility study for a new highway linking coastal Labrador to the Trans-Labrador Highway – itself a massive infrastructure project that had been undergoing upgrades, including paving, since 1997. The $1-billion project was completed this past summer.
The case for a new, northern highway has partly to do with climate change. Warming ocean waters along coastal Labrador are making well-known snowmobile routes over sea ice less and less reliable. This is shortening the stretch of time each year when residents can travel, and making trips more dangerous.
“It’s a big issue around here,” Ms. Wolfrey said. “We’re in an area that has open water all winter long, and you can only go across the ice in certain places. We always knew where we could cross, based on our traditional knowledge. But we can’t rely on that any more.”
Roads in the region aren’t plowed in winter and cars are typically buried under several metres of snow. There is a seasonal ferry that runs along the Labrador coast, but it stops in November. And air travel is prohibitively expensive for most residents: a round-trip flight from Rigolet’s tiny airport to Goose Bay is nearly $1,000, or about $780 for people with beneficiary cards from the Nunatsiavut Inuit territorial government.
“If you were in St. John’s, you could probably go to Bermuda for the same amount of money,” Ms. Wolfrey said.
Charlotte Wolfrey, former mayor of Rigolet, sits at her table in her home in Rigolet.DARREN CALABRESE/The Globe and Mail
But while a highway would benefit tourism operators, medical clinics, resource companies and lower the cost of goods, not everyone is in favour of a link that could open up their communities to the rest of the country.
“Some are for it, some are against it,” explained Joe Dicker, mayor of Nain, the northernmost community in coastal Labrador. “Some of the old-timers don’t want to see the land spoiled.”
There are those who are concerned about a potential influx of southerners coming on hunting expeditions, further depleting the region’s caribou populations. And some worry a highway would make it easier for bootleggers and drugs to enter their communities – something Inuit leaders have worked hard to keep at bay.
When government officials trumpeted the completion of the Trans-Labrador Highway this summer, saying the area was now linked to the rest of Canada, the idea was a joke in Nain, Mr. Dicker said. In communities where groceries can cost double or triple what they do in the south, people feel their coastal region has been forgotten.
Mr. Dicker said it costs him nearly $900 a month to burn stove oil to heat his home – a cost that would certainly drop if transport trucks could reach Nain by road.
“The price of everything is going up. It’s crazy, and it’s getting harder and harder for us to afford things,” he said.
He suggested most of the people living in Nain have no concept of the potential impact of tourism. For now, the area’s tourist trade is limited to those who come by boat to see the soaring Torngat Mountains, which include the highest peaks in Canada east of the Rockies. A highway would open this vast national park up to the rest of the world, he said.
“Right now, only a select few get to see a beautiful place like northern Labrador,” he added.
In Rigolet, there is some skepticism the province and the federal government are willing to spend the money required to build the highway. Ms. Wolfrey said this is the third time a feasibility study has been announced. While most residents appear to be in favour – 85 per cent of people supported the idea of a highway in a recent poll – the debate and consultation continue.
“I’d say most people think the good outweighs the bad, and most of them want a road,” she said. “But in my lifetime? I doubt I’ll see it.”