{"id":622825,"date":"2026-04-23T07:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/622825\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T07:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:37:20","slug":"heres-everything-dnd-expects-to-start-building-in-inuvik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/622825\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s everything DND expects to start building in Inuvik"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next 15 years will see the military footprint at Inuvik\u2019s airport expand to 15 times its current size as the Department of National Defence pours billions of dollars into upgrades.<\/p>\n

That was one headline from presentations made by DND officials this week to town councillors and at a public meeting, a month after Prime Minister Mark Carney formalized a $35-billion Arctic sovereignty spending push<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Similar presentations have been made by other DND representatives in Yellowknife<\/a>, where a public meeting about plans for the territorial capital takes place at the Explorer Hotel on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of similarities between the approaches being taken in the two communities.<\/p>\n

An Indigenous participation plan for local businesses and individuals, a need for hangar space to serve all sizes of Canadian military aircraft, and a need to upgrade water and power infrastructure are common to both sites.<\/p>\n

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Work in Inuvik is already advancing because of the runway extension project that is already years old and will be key to upgrading the airport\u2019s military capabilities.<\/p>\n

Overlaying an image of the entire town of Inuvik onto the airport to hammer home his point about scale, LCol Rob Knapik \u2013 the project director for the Inuvik work \u2013 said DND will expand its airport presence from 15 to 225 hectares of land.<\/p>\n

New hangars will be joined by an operations facility, new aprons and taxiways, upgraded airport lighting, accommodation, a dining area, a medical facility and a munitions storage area, all requirements that are part of Yellowknife\u2019s plan, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll need a lot more power and utilities, because they\u2019re just truck-in, truck-out right now, and we\u2019re going to need about 10 megawatts of power,\u201d Knapik said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSewer and water is yet to be determined. The town has given us a feasibility study, which we will fund under a separate program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Yellowknife, the Inuvik project is targeting 2030 for construction to begin and 2040 for the military installation to be fully operational.<\/p>\n

\u2018No plan of permanent presence\u2019<\/p>\n

Col Pat Dub\u00e9 of the Royal Canadian Air Force said the current presence at the airport is \u201cvery modest\u201d and has to be expanded to hold the likes of new F-35 fighter jets that Canada will seek to deploy to Inuvik as a \u201cpriority\u201d forward operating location serving the Arctic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really need to expand our capacity at these locations to sustain a much larger force,\u201d Dub\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n

However, that does not necessarily mean a transformative influx of military personnel as residents of Inuvik. While DND is upgrading the town\u2019s existing forward operating location, it isn\u2019t currently envisaged as a military base in the sense of a place to which large numbers of people might move for years at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, there\u2019s no plan of permanent presence,\u201d said Dub\u00e9. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that couldn\u2019t change in the future \u2026 but for this project, there\u2019s no plan to have permanent presence in the town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the armed forces would rely on Inuvik as a staging post when deploying forces to the Arctic, for example in response to a perceived threat. When the threat ends, those forces would return to their home bases.<\/p>\n

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Dub\u00e9 said he hopes planned utility upgrades at the airport will have benefits for civilians, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ll be collateral effects that will upgrade and help out the airport to make it more attractive for businesses,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can figure out the power, the water and the sewer and the natural gas, it makes it that much more enticing for other businesses to come to the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a proposal coming from the NWT Power Corporation, and we will pay to upgrade whatever needs to be upgraded in order that we get our power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Middleton, DND\u2019s acting project manager, said the work is at a very early stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to try and figure out how it is going to be delivered,\u201d he said, \u201cand there\u2019s still a lot of details outstanding for me to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Middleton added that DND will seek input from residents and Indigenous rights holders \u201cto tell us more about the lands, because we realize and accept that there\u2019s a lot we do not know \u2013 and we don\u2019t know what we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

He urged local businesses to start acquiring the security clearances that will be necessary to earn work on the project, saying he hopes to \u201cmaximize the local capacity before going external,\u201d and noted that despite the stated 15-year timeline, the project team aims to quickly advance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been made very clear to us from the Government of Canada that this is to be done with some urgency,\u201d Middleton said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe threat doesn\u2019t wait for us to get our act together, so we\u2019re trying to move as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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