A BUSY NORTH Across the North, Indigenous-owned corporations and communities are taking a leading role in advancing ports, roads, dams and transmission lines. INUVIK–TUKTOYAKTUK HIGHWAY (NWT – COMPLETED IN 2017): Canada’s first all-season road to the Arctic coast is 138 kilometres in length and cost around $300 million. IQALUIT DEEP SEA PORT (NUNAVUT – COMPLETED IN 2022): A roughly $85-million territorial project that eliminated long wait times for locals in the warmer months; however, it is not year-round. KIVALLIQ HYDRO-FIBRE LINK (NUNAVUT-MANITOBA – PROJECTED START BY 2028): A 1,200-km power-and-fibre corridor led by wholly Inuit-owned Nukik Corporation. Manitoba reaffirmed 50 megawatts of capacity in a July 2026 MOU. IQALUIT NUKKIKSAUTIIT HYDRO (NUNAVUT – PROJECTED START BY 2028): A $500-million, 15-30 megawatt dam intended to take the capital off diesel. The territory’s first wholly Inuit-owned hydro project. GRAYS BAY ROAD AND PORT (NUNAVUT – PROJECTED START BY 2029): A 230-km road, deepwater port and dual-use airstrip valued at $1-2 billion and led by West Kitikmeot Resources Corp., majority-held by a Kitikmeot Inuit Association affiliate. MACKENZIE VALLEY HIGHWAY (NWT – PRELIMINARY STAGES): An 800-km, $2-billion road from Wrigley toward Inuvik. While the project is spearheaded by territorial and federal governments, “Indigenous-led participation” is listed as central to the project’s planning and execution. DÉLĮNĘ LOW-HEAD HYDRO (NWT – FEASIBILITY STUDY UNDERWAY): Led by the self-governing Délı̨nę Got'ı̨nę Government, a roughly one-megawatt run-of-river turbine on the Great Bear River. There is no dam because Elders rejected one. Geotechnical drilling began in 2025 after three decades of community advocacy. 32 A CCIB PUBLICATION Fall 2026 NORTHERN SPOTLIGHT project, the Qikiqtarjuaq Deep Sea Port and the proposed Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link connecting Nunavut’s Kivalliq Region to Manitoba’s electrical grid. CHALLENGES AHEAD Madeleine Redfern has spent much of her career explaining why Indigenous equity ownership in the North matters. The former two-term mayor of Iqaluit, now executive director of Arctic360’s Northern branch and president of Ajungi Consulting Group, has watched governments plan Northern infrastruc- ture from thousands of kilometres away. Too often, she argues, decisions are made before decision-makers under- stand the places they hope to transform. When it came to the Port of Churchill, this was something as simple as the impact of the local climate on port feasi- bility. “Every minister and every senior official that came up had not realized that it’s not a year-round port,” she says. “Every single one of them.” Redfern points to other projects that overlooked basic local realities, including the $230-million Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Cambridge Bay, completed while the community’s only fire truck sat out of service. Experiences like those shaped Arctic360’s call for a comprehensive inventory of Northern infrastructure to provide a clearer picture of what already exists before billions are committed to what comes next. Viewed through that lens, Churchill’s greatest advantage may not be its location. It may be its ownership. Communities along the Hudson Bay Railway hold something that cannot be engineered in later: generations of local knowledge, institutional memory and a direct stake in whether the corridor succeeds. “Indigenous people want to be part of not only what is that infrastructure that’s going to be built, but who’s going to own it, who’s going to manage it, who’s going to control it,” Redfern says. Back in Churchill, David Daley measures success differently from govern- ments. He recently joined the board of OneNorth, which makes him both owner and resident and invested in the railway and port’s future, living with the realities it is meant to improve. He is proud of what has been built. “We’re happy to be owners of this rail line and this port as [are] the Bayline commu- nities all down the line. But it’s still in its infancy. We’re very proud of what we’ve been doing.” But pride, Daley says, is not the same as success. Ask him how he will know the project has truly worked, and he doesn’t mention shipping volumes or export agreements. He talks about the high cost of groceries and other basic supplies and services. Bulk gasoline at two dollars a litre. Two tomatoes for $13. A return flight to Winnipeg approaching $3,000. “If you want to get out of here to go on holidays and you’re a family of four, that’s $12,000 on the plane,” he says, noting that if the cost of living doesn’t come down, people will keep leaving. Much of Churchill’s housing stock is provincially owned, with dozens of units uninhabitable. School enrol- ment has fallen sharply over the past decade, and contractors working on the railway and port live in temporary camps because there is nowhere else
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