New date for Fort McPherson's Peel meeting

A lone snowmobile crosses the ice bridge across the Peel River.

The people who live on the Peel River will finally get to have their say about the future of the watershed on Feb. 12.

That’s the new date for the Yukon government’s public consultation meeting in Fort McPherson, N.W.T.

The government was supposed to hold its open house in McPherson on Jan. 23, but it cancelled it just a few hours before it was set to begin. It said it was too cold for its workers to make the 175-kilometre drive down the Dempster Highway from Inuvik.

It had held a meeting in Tsiigehtchic the day before when it was equally cold. But instead of continuing on to McPherson, just 57 kilometres further, to spend the night at the Peel River Inn, the six officials returned to Inuvik in their rental trucks that night.

Residents of Fort McPherson, a community 850, were extremely disappointed the meeting was called off. They’d been looking forward to telling the Yukon government what the watershed means to them.

The Fort McPherson meeting will be the last one the government will hold in the communities before it closes the consultation period on Feb. 25.

It’s already held open houses in Whitehorse, Mayo, Dawson City, Old Crow, Aklavik, Tsiigehtchic and Inuvik.

The McPherson meeting will be held at the Johnny D. Charlie Hall. It begins with lunch at 12 and runs until  5 p.m.