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Kivalliq gets two Churchill-based sealift choices

“This is a big plus for the people of the Kivalliq”

JIM BELL

Kivalliq residents may choose between two Churchill-based sealift companies this season, now that a second firm has announced its entry into the Kivalliq dry cargo business.

“This is a big plus for the people of the Kivalliq,” said Waguih Rayes, of Nunavut Sealink and Supply Inc.

NSSI declared last week that they’ll offer a Churchill-based marine cargo service in collaboration with a company called Kivalliq Marine.

Kivalliq Marine will work with customers in the communities, and will manage the movement of cargo by truck and rail from Winnipeg and Thompson to its warehouse in Churchill. NSSI will then move cargo, via barge and sea-going ship, from Churchill to destinations in the Kivalliq.

The two companies say that under this arrangement, Kivalliq customers may order supplies from anywhere in Canada, and may have them shipped from either Churchill or Montreal.

Rayes said NSSI and Kivalliq Marine are still waiting for the Government of Nunavut to supply them with rate information from its new shipping contracts, so his company can post rate and sailing schedule information on its web site.

They’ll compete with the Northern Transportation Company Ltd., which announced this past January that they too will enter the Kivalliq dry cargo business.

NTCL withdrew its Kivalliq dry cargo service in 2002, when they lost their fuel delivery contract with the Government of Nunavut to a company run by Woodward’s Group of Labrador. At that time, NTCL executives concluded they couldn’t afford to run a dry cargo service in the Kivalliq without revenue from fuel delivery.

But NTCL now says that for the 2006 season, they’ll offer two sailings to Arviat, Rankin Inlet and Baker Lake, and one sailing to Chesterfield Inlet, Repulse Bay, Whale Cove and Coral Harbour.

NTCL also won a five-year contract from the GN to do the GN’s own sealift in “Area E,” which takes in all Kivalliq communities, plus Sanikiluaq.

But that doesn’t deter NSSI, which announced its entry into the Kivalliq market before the GN announced its contract awards.

Rayes said NSSI serves numerous other customers, including Arctic Co-operatives Ltd., which owns 75 per cent of the company. The other 25 per cent is owned by Desgagnés Transarctik Inc. of Montreal. NSSI is listed as an Inuit-owned company under the GN’s NNI policy.

NTCL is owned, on a 50-50 basis, by the Nunasi Corp. and the Inuvialuit Development Corp. Because Nunasi’s share is 50, not 51 per cent, it’s not deemed to be Inuit-owned under the NNI.

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