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Northern Manitoba First Nations hope airships could replace ice roads

A group of northern Manitoba First Nations have invited airship experts from around the world to a conference in the province next month.

WINNIPEG — A group of northern Manitoba First Nations have invited airship experts from around the world to a conference in the province next month.

They hope to launch an industry that could see blimps replace costly and unreliable ice roads as a way of delivering supplies to remote communities.

Grand Chief David Harper says the bands that are involved are keen to look into developing the technology.

He says it would be vital to have Ottawa and private partners on board.

But he says there is an urgency to the situation, saying they want it done not in the next few decades but in the next few years.

Airships are already being used by the U.S. military and by the mining and aerospace industries.

“It costs about $5,000 per kilometre to build an ice road,” says Barry Prentice of the Transport Institute at the University of Manitoba. “We have 2,200 kilometres of ice roads” and they have to built anew every year.

The advantage of airships is their strength and ability to fly in all kinds of weather.

“I can lift a lot of loads that other aircraft wouldn’t think of,” says Dale George, technical lead for Being Aircraft. “With a big airship, I could put a whole house underneath it.

“We think we can reduce the costs of the transport of the food by between 20 and 50 per cent, using 50 tonnes of airship.”

A House of Commons committee has already recommended rethinking the applications for airships and has suggested a pilot project be launched via Public Works and Government Services.