Pause on N.W.T.’s Tibbitt to Contwoyto road a shock for truckers but hunter hopes it’ll help caribou
As mines wind down, owners agreed there wouldn’t be a need for the road this winter
Scott Yuill remembers his first season on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto ice road. He remembers advice from more experienced truckers and he remembers the relationships he made and looking forward to each season.
The road connects the end of the Ingraham Trail to the Ekati, Gahcho Kué and Diavik diamond mines, allowing truckers to ship thousands of pounds of materials. As the mines wind down production, their owners agreed there would likely be no need for the road to operate this winter.
“It’s kind of a shock,” Yuill said.
He said he just finished paying off two rigs and now isn’t sure what he’ll do with them.
“As of right now they’re sitting and that doesn’t help us at all bring in any revenue.”
Yuill also owns Harley’s Hardrock Saloon in Yellowknife. Without the seasonal crews that work on the winter road, he said the closure will impact that business too.
“We see an increase of personnel in the town and spending and coming to the bar because they’re only in town for those many months, so they want to enjoy themselves and now we won’t see that,” he said.
Long-time hunter Robert Giroux sees it differently. Though he said he’s sad to see job loss for the truckers working on the road, from a wildlife perspective, he hopes the closure will give the caribou population an opportunity to heal.
He said the road makes it too easy to access caribou and he sees people hunting irresponsibly as a result.
“They take a snow machine off and then they’re half a kilometre and they got 20, 30 caribou, you know, that’s how easy it is,” he said.
“I see lots of meat wastage, I come across carcasses where they’re just the hindquarters and the tongues are gone and that’s not right.”
Giroux said he believes the caribou will be able to repopulate without the road this winter and he hopes they’ll return to the migration patterns he remembers from when he was young.
He said he has other areas he likes to travel to for hunting, but he will miss seeing the landscape from the Tibbitt to Contwoyto winter road.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: N.W.T.’s ice road to 3 diamond mines unlikely to open for 2027 season, CBC News
Finland: Finland’s roads remain hazardous following first winter storm, including Lapland, Yle News
