SENATE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE March 8, 1993 3:40 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Bert Sharp, Chairman Senator Randy Phillips, Vice Chairman Senator Jay Kerttula Senator Georgianna Lincoln MEMBERS ABSENT Senator Tim Kelly COMMITTEE CALENDAR Yukon Government Presentation on Arctic Transportation Routes WITNESS REGISTER John Ostashek Government Leader Minister of Finance Yukon Territory Doug Phillips Minister of Tourism and Education Yukon Territory ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 93-12, SIDE A Number 001 CHAIRMAN SHARP called the Transportation Committee meeting to order at 3:40 p.m. and invited the Honorable John Ostashek, Government Leader, Ministry of Finance, Yukon Territory to give his presentation. MR. JOHN OSTASHEK thanked him for having the meeting and began with an overview of the Dempster Hwy. that goes through Canada to the Arctic Coast. It starts about 500 kilometers north of Whitehorse and is built over tundra most of the way. It was started in 1958 and completed in 1979. It cost $127.6 million. During the months of June, July, and August there are about 100 vehicles a day using the road and for the remainder of the year, it is about 30 vehicles a day. About 7% of that is truck traffic. He said the highway goes through environmentally critical country with a lot of permafrost and caribou. The caribou migrate across the Dempster Highway. He said the difficulty is the cost of maintaining it, because it travels through a lot of open country. He believes in future years it will be a real lifeline to the Arctic and McKenzie Delta. Number 172 SENATOR LINCOLN said she didn't want to put him on a spot by asking these questions, but she is interested because the majority of the Dalton Highway is within her district. She said there are a lot of unknowns if the road should be opened to the public. SENATOR LINCOLN asked him about the truck traffic. MR. OSTASHEK said 7% of the traffic was commercial trucks. He said that people were using the highway more, because it is well maintained. SENATOR LINCOLN asked him if communities along the road were mostly native. MR. OSTASHEK explained there were many native people in the communities along the road. SENATOR LINCOLN asked if the public traffic was primarily people who lived in the two communities on the road. MR. OSTASHEK said the majority of the traffic is tourist. They allow people to hunt and fish in the road area, although there is a five kilometer no-hunting corridor along the highway which is patrolled by their conservation officers. There are very few infractions. He said there are public camp grounds along the route and the foremen at the three highway camps patrol the road once a day. SENATOR LINCOLN asked if they have a problem with people who leave old vehicles along the road. MR. OSTACHEK said old vehicles and litter, in general, wasn't a problem. He said the road is also in good condition. Number 304 SENATOR LINCOLN asked if he had any feed back from indigenous people in that area on the increased tourist traffic. He emphasized that they have encouraged tourism and want to further enhance it, because it is a benefit to their community. Number 360 SENATOR KERTTULA asked if they have the policy of using local materials for structures their tax payers support? MR. OSTASHEK said that policy has not worked as good as the administration would have liked it to work. SENATOR LINCOLN asked how big were the communities of Inuvik and Fort MacPherson. MR. OSTASHEK said Enuvik was about 1,500 people and Fort MacPherson was about 600. He said there was a phone at Eagle Plains and at the other two highway maintenance camps. Number 432 DOUG PHILLIPS, Minister of Tourism and Education, said the winter ferry schedule did not coincide very well with the weekends so that people in White Horse could not travel between the two countries very conveniently. He thought it would be in the best interests of both countries to consider this. MR. PHILLIPS also endorsed building the road from Juneau to White Horse. He thought it would tie together about 50,000 people. It would give Yukon another port and give other Alaskans another route to Alaska. It would open up many mining opportunities between Juneau and Whitehorse. Dawson City over the next six years is going to be the focal point of tourism for the Yukon, because of the gold rush centennial and other celebrations. If we were to look ahead at tourism opportunities for both of us, MR. PHILLIPS said, loop roads would be the way to go. Another problem is the bottleneck at the American Border, because the hours they keep there do not coincide with ferry connections. MR. PHILLIPS said a road to Juneau would create access to tidewater for the Atlin area that has good mining potential. Number 562 CHIP THOMA, Juneau resident, noted that the indigenous people on the Dempster Highway have encouraged that road being opened. They have not done that on the Dalton Highway. Number 570 SENATOR LINCOLN asked if the corridor along the Dempster Highway was owned by the Canadian government and if the indigenous people owned any portion of it. MR. PHILLIPS said their land claims weren't settled yet. Right now the corridor belongs to the government. CHAIRMAN SHARP adjourned the meeting at 4:25 p.m.