As mentioned in an earlier post, Tulita is accessible for a few months of the year via the winter road system:
The 15-year historical average opening dates for the road to Tulita is January 1 to March 28. This season, it opened in late December, but it’s still not open to large trucks. The road mostly follows the alongside the river, but there are several places where it goes right over the river, which requires a minimum ice thickness (25″ for large trucks).
Once the ice is thick enough for large trucks, there will be an influx of supplies making their way into town.
Of course, this system is not foolproof. Last year, a fuel tanker went through the ice on the road to Deline:
So hopefully we won’t see a repeat of that this year.
I went to Norman Wells for a meeting this past week, and we drove there. It took 2.5 hours to cover the 90km distance (I’ve heard that it can be done as fast as 1.5 hours). Overall, it is not a smooth ride. The day we left had heavy winds, leaving a large amount of snow drift on the road. The route is bumpy, with regular descents to creek crossings. The bridges over the creeks are permanent, which would make an all-season road to Norman Wells reasonably feasible, if it weren’t for the Bear River crossing. The estimated cost to build that bridge would be about $80 million. An all-season road up the Mackenzie has been discussed for decades, but is unlikely any time soon.