{"id":498469,"date":"2026-02-25T11:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/498469\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:44:19","slug":"weeks-of-dempster-highway-closures-making-road-less-safe-mla-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/498469\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeks of Dempster Highway closures making road less safe, MLA says"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cI understand, yes, climate change is real. It\u2019s happening. It\u2019s happening on both sides of the border. Our contractors seem to be able to keep it open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inuvik Boot Lake MLA Denny Rodgers says the Yukon needs to do a better job of keeping its stretch of Dempster Highway open to traffic.<\/p>\n

In the legislature on Tuesday, Rodgers said the highway connecting Inuvik to the rest of Canada \u2013 which runs through the Yukon \u2013 was closed for 18 days in January and has been closed for a further nine days in February so far.<\/p>\n

Rodgers said that\u2019s depriving the Beaufort Delta of \u201cgroceries to building supplies, fuel and many other needed products,\u201d as well as triggering a shift in the workforce that trucks goods to the region.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI spoke with trucking companies that service the region. Most drivers work on a contract basis and if the road is closed, there are no trips to make. The experienced drivers then go elsewhere,\u201d Rodgers said, adding such a loss of experience has an impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen this year significantly more incidents of transport truck accidents on the Dempster Highway than we\u2019ve seen in many, many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodgers said the end result could be higher fees charged by trucking companies, which are likely to mean higher prices locally.<\/p>\n

Even worse, he said, trucking firms may simply choose \u201cnot to run the highway at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Minister to contact Yukon over issue<\/p>\n

The NWT government has had past disagreements with Beaufort Delta contractors<\/a> over snow clearance on highways, though those involved say the arguments were patched up and everyone learned important lessons.<\/p>\n

Rodgers was clear on Tuesday that he doesn\u2019t think the NWT side of the Dempster Highway is the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the Northwest Territories side, our model of maintaining the road by local contractors seems to be working,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have contractors that are local, have local knowledge, that have been out removing the snow quickly after snow storms to get the Dempster Highway open. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe must work with our sister territories to ensure these costly closures are dealt with in a timely manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked by Rodgers if he had met with his Yukon counterpart over the issue, infrastructure minister Vince McKay said the two territories had spoken about the Dempster in recent months. \u201cWe continue to work with the Yukon government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even so, the minister said he would push the Yukon side for more information.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur departments have been communicating and they are doing a bunch of work to the Dempster Highway, and there\u2019s plans being developed on exactly what they\u2019re going to do,\u201d McKay said of the Yukon approach. <\/p>\n

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\u201cUnfortunately, I don\u2019t have details on what their action plans are for maintaining the road during winter events and when there are winter storms or anything like that on the Yukon side. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I will reach out to the Government of Yukon to see if there\u2019s an opportunity on how we can work together, and maybe some better communication on helping keep the Dempster Highway open for less impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Yukon government said it spends $7 million annually<\/a> keeping its side of the highway open. <\/p>\n

Last week, a Yukon Department of Highways and Public Works spokesperson told the CBC<\/a> the territory ended up spending nearly $50 million last year on road maintenance alone, though it wasn\u2019t clear how much of that involved the Dempster.<\/p>\n

Roads like the Dempster, Alaska and North Klondike highways are \u201cparticularly vulnerable to thawing permafrost, flooding, erosion and other climate-related risks,\u201d the broadcaster quoted spokesperson Antoine Goulet as saying.<\/p>\n

Rodgers told the legislature there should be an opportunity for NWT contractors to offer the Yukon assistance on the other side of the border.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis certainly adds to the discussion of building the Mackenzie Valley Highway,\u201d he observed, referring to the NWT\u2019s proposed all-season highway from the Dehcho to the Sahtu, which could eventually connect all the way through to Inuvik. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur own highway,\u201d he said, \u201cmaintained solely by our own contractors, carrying products to service more of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advertisement. \u201cI understand, yes, climate change is real. It\u2019s happening. It\u2019s happening on both sides of the border.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,2848,295,2546,82984,66,46957],"class_list":["post-498469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-climate","tag-environment","tag-infrastructure","tag-inuvik","tag-science","tag-travel-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}