Blockade to affect shipments north of Winnipeg

WINNIPEG — A road artery just east of Lake Winnipeg could be blocked this morning by residents of the Berens River reserve who are protesting a government decision to cease heavy truck shipments because of winter road restrictions.

According to the Winnipeg Free Press, the group is planning to block the only roadway in and out of the area, which could hold up $400, 000 worth of pulp and wood shipments to a plant north of Winnipeg.

“If we can’t haul (pulp wood) south, then nobody is going to haul (goods) north,” Chief George Kemp told the newspaper.

Winter roads are the only routes to truck in supplies every year for fly-in reserves that have no permanent road links to the outside world.

But Poplar River isn’t the only northern reserve that could be affected by the blockade. Kemp said the band may block a junction in the winter road which leads to the Island Lake communities, a group of four reserves located near the Ontario-Manitoba border, reports the Free Press.

— from the Winnipeg Free Press