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Ninth in series: Muncho Lake business anticipates Alaska Highway traffic decline
Patricia Jones, PNA contributing writer
Nestled in the rugged mountains of northern British Columbia, Double G Services at Muncho Lake provides a variety of respite opportunities for Alaska Highway travelers.
In addition to the traditional café, gas station, RV Park and motel accommodations, Double G also provides a post office, Western Union services and a Greyhound bus stop.
Double G owner Jack Gunness also offers tours of the seven-mile long Muncho Lake aboard his cabin cruiser during summer months, and his wife Pam makes and sells crafts at the café.
Like other residents and business operators along this rugged and remote stretch of the Alaska Highway, Gunness must provide his own electric power via a diesel generator. He estimates his power costs are about 60 cents per kilowatt, 10 times that in Fort Nelson, located a little more than 100 miles south.
“I dread winter coming because of that,” Gunness said. “It takes about $3,000 a month to keep the plant running, more in winter … (fuel) just pours through the plant like water.”
While he supports construction of a natural gas pipeline along the Alaska Highway corridor, Gunness doesn’t expect many long-term benefits to the remote Muncho Lake area, particularly in the area of fuel supply.
“There’s so few in population and users, I can’t see them building a station to serve those few people,” Gunness said. “There might be some short-term benefits, but not much of an increase in traffic in the long term.”
Local gas could be developed In fact, he said truck traffic might actually decrease, especially if road access to the Mackenzie River Valley is extended north from Wrigley, located along that river in the Northwest Territories.
“There will actually be a decrease when the building rush is finished,” Gunness said. “It’s much more direct to go from Edmonton to Wrigley.”
Already, he’s seen a decrease in highway traffic, due to improvements of Highway 37, also known as the Cassiar Highway. “Things changed drastically in 1983 with Highway 37,” he said. “That cut off a lot of regular truck traffic … from Vancouver and Washington state.”
Rather, benefits to the Muncho Lake area could come from development of local pockets of natural gas, he said.
“The whole country here is lousy with gas, and we could have feeder lines all over,” Gunness said.
He would also like to see more money put into research and development of alternative energy resources. “Diesel can’t be doing us much good, environmentally.”
Gunness started his business at Muncho Lake in 1978, when traffic from development of the trans-Alaska pipeline system was starting to taper off. “I saw the very end of that traffic,” he said. “The pipeline in Alaska didn’t seem to give us much of a prolonged benefit.”
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