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Winter ice road leads to remote NWT villages

By Dwight Payne

Travel on Canada’s winter ice roads is not for the faint of heart. Anyone who has ever seen the television show “Ice Road Truckers” probably has some idea of the isolation, the brutally cold weather and the potential dangers involved. Therefore it was with a little trepidation that I traveled those roads last month into the Northwest Territories to visit some of Canada’s most remote regions.

I had been invited to go by David Hahn, a retired police helicopter pilot from Kentucky. David is now a strategy coordinator for the CCSB and, since 2000, has been making trips to the Northwest Territories with the hope of eventually starting churches there. With the blessings and support of the CCSB, we began to plan our trip.

We met in Edmonton at the end of January, rented a car, and headed north. After leaving the airport, we drove about six hours to the town of Fairview, where Ray and Hope Shannon graciously invited us to spend the night in their home. Ray is the pastor of Fairview Cornerstone Baptist Church, in Northern Alberta. We would not see another CCSB church as we traveled the next 1500 kilometers.

After breakfast the next morning, we were back on the road and would drive north for four more days before reaching Déline, our ultimate destination. As we traveled, the towns got smaller, the roads got narrower, and we saw less and less traffic. It was also cold, with temperatures that hovered between -44° to -49° Celsius for most of the trip.

At Wrigley, the “real” road ended. We conducted a Bible study that night in the home of a First Nations couple and were joined by some of the villagers. The following morning our trek up the winter road began.

The winter ice road is only open for about two months of the year. It is rough and is carved out of the wilderness, often crossing frozen creeks, lakes and rivers. For the remainder of the year, the villages along its route are almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. Although each village has an airport, air travel is very expensive and is something that most of the residents, who are mainly First Nations people, cannot afford.

We saw God working among some of these villagers, who seemed open to hearing the gospel. God opened doors for us in Ft. Simpson and we were able to procure the town recreation centre for the week of June 23-27. David Hahn will return that week, along with a group of volunteers, and lead a Kids Club for native children living in Ft. Simpson and the surrounding areas.

The final leg of our trip found us driving several miles across the frozen Great Bear Lake, which is the eighth largest lake in the world. On the other side of the lake sat the small First Nations village of Déline, which would be the northernmost point of our trip. There, we met with a few believers and led a Bible study.

Later that night, I went outside to retrieve an item from our vehicle. The green and white glow of the Northern Lights stretched from horizon to horizon--covering a third of the sky--and were spectacular in their appearance. Looking upward, I thought about how God had kept us safe during our journey and how He had been with us every step of the way. As I stood in awe of His creation, I was reminded of Psalm 46:10, which says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”