Leaders in Cumberland House, Sask., say highway repairs in danger of washing out
Leaders in Cumberland House are worried that a temporary fix to the only road access to their community won't hold up.
The village, about 300 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert, declared a state of a emergency last week after Highway 123 washed out due to heavy rainfall.
Mayor Ferlin McKay said provincial highway crews have made repairs, but he thinks they will only hold temporarily, because they just scooped up muddy gravel that had washed away and pushed it back onto the road.
"It was still wet," he said. "It was mixed with the grass along the highway."
He said the rock they put on top of the mud punctured one of his tires on his truck when he drove on the highway briefly, and his tires are thicker than those on most vehicles.
"The people in our community want to go out and go shopping and attend their medical appointments, and with the road conditions that I saw ... if it's going to rain it's going to get worse than it was before," McKay said.
He said the state of emergency will stay in place until the highway is safe to use.
Leaders from the Northern Village of Cumberland House, Cumberland House Cree Nation and Métis Nation-Saskatchewan have a meeting set with Highways Minister Lori Carr on June 10.
McKay said the ministry initially wanted the meeting to be online, but he and his council declined an online meeting. He hopes that when ministry officials have to drive the highway, they will see how bad it really is.
"Our highway needs to be upgraded," he said. "That old material that's on our highway needs to be removed and [they need to] put new material on."
The Ministry of Highways confirmed Carr will be travelling to the June 10 meeting by road to attend in person.
In a statement, the ministry said it plans to spend $3.3 million to improve Highway 123 "where vehicles are having difficulty travelling." Work is expected to begin later this year.
Community concerns
The village's deputy mayor, Veronica Favel, said that so far, two community members have needed to be airlifted from the community for medical reasons. She said the ambulance service won't travel on the highway while it's in this state.
She has also been hearing from community members dealing with vehicle damage after they travel the highway.
"When you think of the cost of vehicles today, and how much it is costing in repairs to the people who live here ... it's at their own cost, and their own sacrifices every time they cross that bridge onto that grid road," she said.
Favel said it sometimes feels like the community is forgotten.
"The ultimate solution is to reconstruct that highway so future generations can utilize it, and they don't need to fight for a necessity."
