Shelves emptying as road, airport closures leave some N.W.T. communities without groceries

‘People are people and they bought out the store in about two days,’ says Łútselk’e Co-op manager.
Shelf-stable milk and crackers are among all that’s left in some N.W.T. grocery stores located outside of the capital city.
Wildfires have interrupted N.W.T. supply chains by closing highways and limiting flights out of the Yellowknife airport.
For Łútselk’e, N.W.T. — a fly-in community on the east arm of Great Slave Lake — that means the community’s one grocery store is stuck with empty shelves while awaiting deliveries. Joe Yatkowski, manager of the Łútselk’e Co-op, is used to receiving shipments of goods seven days a week.
“Now I have none,” he said. “And everybody knows there’s none. So you know what happens? People are people and they bought out the store in about two days.”
Yellowknife-based airline Air Tindi carries shipments to the N.W.T. communities of Łútselk’e, Whatı, Wekweètı and Gamètı as part of its regular service. The airline is still operating and says it is continuing to fly groceries into communities.
However, now it is flying out of Edmonton — and that’s driving up costs in a big way.
Yatkowski said a 3,100-kilogram food shipment — about 7,000 pounds — would normally cost about $5,000 before the Nutrition North subsidy. Now, that same shipment is billed at approximately $50,000.
Yatkowski points to a four-litre container of milk which would normally cost about
$7 after the Nutrition North subsidy.
“What mother can buy that for their
babies?” he said…Source: cbc.ca/news