Ice roads not so far north

By Rick Garrick

TEMAGAMI FIRST NATION – Most people do not associate Temagami with Ontario’s network of winter roads, but the Bear Island community usually builds a 12-kilometre ice road each year.

“It’s spectacular — they love it,” says Roger Assiniwe, Temagami First Nation’s community infrastructure manager, about the community’s reaction to each year’s opening of the ice road. “Just the small thing of getting your groceries — you only have to handle it twice, at the grocery store and at your door. We’re handling it four times during the summer, at the grocery store into your truck, out of your vehicle to the boat, from the boat to your house. The community loves the ice road.”

The ice road route varies each year according to ice and snow conditions.

“This year we have four access points to Bear Island whereas last year ice conditions were pretty poor and we were only able to get one access to Bear Island,” Assiniwe says. “So it varies from the freeze up to the amount of snow on the ice when we are doing this.”

Assiniwe says transport trucks do not use the ice road; if fuel is required it is usually brought over in saddle tanks.

“If something catastrophic were to happen, then we would be in a bit of a jam there with contamination,” Assiniwe says. “(As for) getting materials here, people can go over with their own trailers.”

Assiniwe says the community has a 60-ton barge for hauling supplies over to Bear Island during the summer.

“We can load transports right on there,” Assiniwe says. “We get our materials that way.”

The ice road is usually built about six lanes wide at the beginning of the season to allow room for slush buildup along the sides.

“Right now it is over two feet thick, so it is probably capable of holding up to 56,000 pounds,” Assiniwe says.

Assiniwe cautions drivers to keep to a maximum of 50 kilometres per hour on the winter road, noting that their vehicles cause waves underneath the ice.

“There are some people out there who tend to drive a little too fast on this ice road,” Assiniwe says. “You are creating a wave under the ice no matter how thick it is. You don’t want to be catching up to that wave — you are cracking the ice.”

Assiniwe says the community has an airboat for emergencies when the lake is freezing over in the fall and breaking up in the spring.

“If the helicopters can’t come in, then we have an airboat operator that is a very good driver,” Assiniwe says. “It’s quite costly to operate, but it’s there if we need it.”

While the community has considered a permanent connection to the mainland, Assiniwe says it would involve multiple bridges.

“From Bear Island we’d have to go to a smaller island and then from that island there are two or three other islands we’d have to jump across in order to do that,” Assiniwe says. “But our water here is so deep — it’s over 100 feet deep in areas. It would involve major construction, major dollars.”

The community of about 200 on-reserve citizens usually operates the ice road from early January to the end of March, depending on ice conditions. Temagami received about $30,000 in funding for the ice road this year from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. In addition to community members, ice fishermen from across the region also use the ice road to access ice fishing huts.