With winter giving more ground to spring with each passing day, we often wonder how long conditions will remain suitable for dogsledding. Today, we finally gave in to Mother Nature when we decided, on the advice of locals, Playgreen Lake was too dangerous for travel due to bad ice and large sections of open water.

But for those living in the forest's northern communities, the transformation from winter to spring can be summed up in one phrase: no more winter road.

The winter road system, a series of roads opened and maintained by the government each winter, is the lifeblood of these communities. The roads travel across vast stretches of land and frozen lakes. Each year, government engineers carefully check the thickness and quality of the ice in various locations. When the necessary benchmarks are met, the road is declared open and ready for use. This usually occurs in mid-January.

In a couple of short months each year, everyone living in these communties, plus businesses and local government agencies, must ship in all their heavy goods for the year. Semi trucks carrying everthing from gasoline to culverts to trailer homes rush to meet demand before the conditions deteriorate and the roads are closed.

For those who fail to plan, a hefty price tag of roughly 55 cents/ lb. is the going rate for items shipped in by air.

When we passed through Wasagamack, band officials were still trying to arrange for this year's fuel to be shipped in. In the meantime, the warm weather continued to roll in and anxiety grew with each passing day. We have not heard whether or not they succeeded in getting their gas.

Two weeks ago at the Knee Lake Resort on Knee Lake, an outfit half-owned by the Oxford House band of Cree, employees were busy receiving a shipment of flour for the summer tourist season--a modest 9,000 lbs. of flour, that is. We didn't ask about the rice.

The road to Oxford House closed last Friday, two days after we reached Cross Lake. Although the road won't be maintained any longer, truck drivers continue to ply the route, but the price of shipping is nearly doubled. Everyone has a story about a friend who drove his vehicle here or there on a closed winter road and ended up having to wait to retrieve it until the following winter, because they got stranded.

For those who can't afford airfare very often, the winter road also serves as the only gateway to the outside world. Nearly everyone takes at least a weekend to head out (to Thompson) or out for a while (to Winnipeg) to take advantage of lower prices on groceries and hardware and also just to get a change of venue for a while. Some of the the schools we visited had almost 50 percent absenteeism--"In Winnipeg," according to teachers and peers.

But as our movement becomes restricted by bad ice and warm weather, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to appreciate the role the winter roads play up here--and how much smaller the world gets when they're gone.

Adam