With highways opening and closing intermittently due to wildfires, travellers trying to leave or come into the NWT are in a constant state of flux as to what to do.
Imagine what it's like for the city’s grocery stores.
Co-op has been preparing for just such a scenario, according to Jeff Kincaid, business development manager at the Yellowknife location.
“We've spent the last few months working with our distribution warehouse and the truckers to have a communication plan in place during road closures,” he said.
Kincaid said the store had two trucks held up earlier this month because of highway closures: one bringing goods in and the other attempting to head down south. At that time, he didn’t expect the road closure to last long enough for them to worry about a shortage of products on the shelves. The store regularly schedules five trucks per week, and they currently aren’t running low on stock yet.
Acknowledging that the wildfire season has arrived earlier this year, Kincaid said that if Highway 1 through the Alberta border closes, they will use the alternate route, which is Highway 7 through B.C.
He told NNSL Media on Tuesday afternoon that trucks were having no issues coming in from Alberta on the original route of Highway 1.
He mentioned that based on last year’s experience, even when the roads are closed for public transportation, fire crews work hard to try to get essential goods through the highway.
“They are usually pretty good at isolating our trucks and being able to get the goods and supplies up to us,” he said.
Shouls the worst-case scenario happen - both highways being closed for an extended period of time - Kincaid said they have previous experience airlifting products into the city.
For Gary Jaeb, a resident of Behchoko who came to the city because his wife was in the hospital, he said he just tries to keep as many essential supplies on hand should anything arise.
“We want to have Tylenol, rice, flour, sugar, and salt. I want to be able to clean myself, so I bought a lot of toilet paper,” he said.
He added that he has to hope for the best and that things won’t go sideways.