Symposium to tackle northern transportation challenges

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This article was published 30/07/2024 (427 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Anyone with any experience in northern Manitoba knows how challenging it is to get around, whether by road, rail or air.

But with a new $125-million terminal under construction for the Thompson Regional Airport, another $60 million to stabilize the Hudson Bay Railway to Churchill and the fact that the winter road season is getting shorter every year, there’s a push to get all the factions in the transportation industry to collaborate and work together more closely.

The Thompson Chamber of Commerce has organized the first Northern Transportation Symposium for Sept. 5-6 to bring proponents from across the sector to make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

Volker Beckman, a director of the Thompson chamber and a longtime advocate for the North, said, “The new airport terminal is a big project. There are lots of challenges and opportunities. Lots of people are doing things but they’re not necessarily talking to each other. We wanted to bring all the components together.”

Ironically, the challenges of scant air travel connectivity to Thompson became an issue even in the organization of such an event that hopes to attract close to 100 attendees.

Beckman said there have been potential presenters from across the country who were considered attending, but air fares and scheduling made it difficult to bring some of them in.

The symposium will be self-financed — with plenty of corporate sponsors already signed up — but Beckman said, “We can’t afford to be in the hole.”

Many understand that economic development opportunities in the North would be enhanced with a better transportation infrastructure. But funding is always an issue.

A recent call from the Keewatin Tribal Council to build 1,400 kilometres of all-season roads to some of its remote communities that depend on air service and ice roads, will have a tough time finding the capital resources.

Beckman said the regional transportation problems were emphasized after the tragic death of 38-year-old Thompson MLA Danielle Adams in 2021 from a collision on Highway 6, the only roadway up to Thompson. A citizen group advocating for better safety on Highway 6 has been promoting construction of passing lanes.

“If she knew there was a passing lane in 30 kilometres, that accident may not have happened,” Beckman said.

The fact that there was poor cell service and that the accident site was so far away from emergency support underlined the significant transportation challenges northerners have to face all the time.

But the construction of the airport is an encouraging development for the region, notwithstanding the fact it took more than a decade to get it going.

Thompson Regional Airport Authority is a sponsor of the symposium, and Curtis Ross, longtime head CEO of the airport, said he was especially interested in it because all modes of transportation will be discussed.

Ross said it can’t be assumed that the new terminal will automatically attract more carriers and/or more routes, but he said it will definitely make that possible.

“We were just not going to attract WestJet, Air Canada or Porter to Thompson with the old terminal,” Ross said,

In addition to the fact the old 14,000-square-foot terminal building was being destabilized by the discontinuous permafrost that it was built on, it also was not able to provide the features those national airlines required.

The new one will be 40,000 square feet and will at least have room for additional traffic that the old one didn’t.

Ross said in the past when there was heavy traffic related to things such as the construction of Hydro generating stations in the north, the airport sometimes had to use buses to stage people because there was no room in the terminal.

“We’re not building a new terminal expecting a million people to cone to the region, but it will definitely increase tourism,” Ross said. “If the first impression was the old tin can, it was not a good impression.”

The symposium will include transportation advocates and speakers on several themes, including the new airport, the Hudson Bay Railway and the Port of Churchill, the Safer Highway 6 action group, the University of Manitoba’s Barry Prentice on airship potential in the north, winter roads and Indigenous development issues related to transportation.

Beckman said there will also be a presentation from the NeeStaNan Corridor, a Calgary-based group that’s been floating a proposal to haul major cargo from western provinces through The Pas and Thompson and creating a new port at Port Nelson on the coast of Hudson Bay.

Not surprisingly that’s not a proposal that Arctic Gateway Group, owners of the Hudson Bay railway and Port of Churchill, are particularly fond of.

To register and learn more about the symposium, go to ntsymposium.ca.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca