Introduction/Background

The Canadian Arctic region suffers from a lack of transportation that affects cargo deliveries for food, material and equipment over
several months of year due to weather.

Permanent roads and rail lines do not extend to most of the far northern areas. Gravel roads are flooded during the warmer months
and frozen over in winter months The cost of making these roads driveable is $3 million per kilometer. Ice road serviceability is
available less than 30 days per year since 1996. The respective seasonal cost ranges $3,500 to $6,000 per kilometer over proven routes.

Communities and businesses lack routine cargo support which causes goods and food prices extremely high. For instance, $20 carton
of orange juice. This causes long delays in heavy equipment deliveries.