Northern Transportation, which delivers “everything” to many remote North American communities, is facing the end of court-ordered bankruptcy protection on September 22, according to The Toronto Star.
Northern Transportation, which delivered construction material to the Distant Early Warning system during the Cold War and the first drilling rig to Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay in 1963, is sinking in debt and faces the end of court-ordered bankruptcy protection.
Owned by an Inuvialuit corporation, the company owes $130 million, most of it to a consortium of Canadian banks. It has issued layoff notices and, while it is living up to this year’s commitments, can’t say what will happen in 2017.
“A lot of the decisions are still before the courts,” says Mark Fleming, vice-president of Norterra, the Inuvialuit-owned holding company that owns Northern Transportation.
The transporter ships to 12 communities in Canada’s western Arctic, mostly up the Mackenzie River from its headquarters in Hay River, N.W.T. Combined with the once-booming Arctic oil patch, it made for good business — until recently, says Fleming.
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