Stores swiftly stripped of perishable foods

Closures of parts of the Alaska Highway made weekend grocery trips a bit difficult as local stores quickly ran out of fresh produce, meat and dairy products.

Closures of parts of the Alaska Highway made weekend grocery trips a bit difficult as local stores quickly ran out of fresh produce, meat and dairy products.

Loblaws, which owns Extra Foods and the Real Canadian Superstore, chartered a Hercules aircraft to pick up food from trucks stranded in Watson Lake and deliver it to Whitehorse.

Two flights arrived with food Sunday and four more are scheduled for today.

Superstore manager Roger Brown said in an interview today his store still won’t be fully stocked but shoppers will at least have some options.

Brown said the Superstore can get up to four truck deliveries a day. The flights will empty six transport trucks stuck in Watson Lake.

A seventh truck is stranded at the Rancheria Lodge, and Brown said the driver was given permission to hand out food to others stranded in the area.

The truck will come to Whitehorse by road once it’s cleared.

Brown made it clear that even though the company is incurring substantial costs hiring the Hercules, that bill will not be passed on to its customers.

“My milk is going to be the same price this week as it was last week and the week before,” he said.

“This is our way of helping the community out in a time of strife; we’re not out to make any extra profits.”

In Watson Lake, an estimated 2,000 people are stranded in the area, although public information officer Aisha Montgomery said it’s really hard to get an accurate count.

Speaking from Watson Lake, she said the community has really pulled together to help out stranded travellers or those displaced from flooding in Lower Post and Upper Liard.

The local Grade 12s hosted a chili and movie night at the school gym last night, which Montgomery said a lot of people she’s spoken with have said was a great night.

An emergency Department of Health and Social Services team has also set up a temporary shelter where they’ve been handing out food and other supplies.

Montgomery said they had 20 people stay at the shelter last night and about 170 people visited during the day.

Montgomery and other public information officers are set up at the EMS centre in town and they’ve had hundreds of people a day come in.

Montgomery has also been giving regular radio updates on the situation on a local frequency.

Gerry Dobson, the owner of the Cozy Corner Motel and Restaurant in Haines Junction, had a quiet weekend after the road was opened at km 1639.

He’s hoping once the road opens between Teslin and Watson Lake that business will pick up.

A busy morning at the Rancheria Lodge meant no one was available to comment on the situation there before deadline.

Some Whitehorse gas stations have also been affected by the highway closures.

Tags ran out of regular fuel last night, but a truck coming from Edmonton was able to get through Ross River.

Store manager John MacLeod said they have plenty of fuel now available.

Shell wasn’t affected at all because its fuel is shipped from Skagway and the company has plenty of storage in Whitehorse, Sharon Ness told the Star this morning.

North 60 Petroleum, which supplies Standard Bus Contracting Ltd., had plenty of fuel, according to the bus company’s operation’s manager Normalee Craig, who had
recently spoken with the supplier.

The highway closures affected the company in another way, though.

The bus driver training simulator, owned by Standard’s parent company Pacific Western Transportation and profiled in Friday’s Star, was scheduled to visit Dawson Creek,
Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, B.C. but is stuck in Whitehorse until the road reopens.