Canada’s Gravel Lifelines
Expertly Transforming Northern Canada’s Vital Unpaved Runways into Surfaces Fit for the Future.
In the vast expanse of northern Canada, where winter temperatures plunge to minus 50 degrees and communities sit hundreds of kilometers from the nearest road, gravel runways serve as lifelines. For the 117 remote communities that depend entirely on air transport, these unpaved airstrips are not infrastructure luxuries but essential arteries for survival. They carry food, medicine, construction materials, and critically, up to 100,000 medevac flights annually.
“The gravel runways across Canada are the interstate highway system delivering all the goods and services and medical care,” says Robert Vitale, CEO of Midwest Industrial Supply. “There are no roads servicing these communities, so they need strong, durable runways to bring cargo in, bring passengers in and out, and for medevac operations.” His Ohio-based company has spent four decades developing specialized chemical solutions that transform loose gravel into surfaces capable of supporting everything from small prop planes to Boeing 737s equipped with gravel kits.
The stakes are enormous. When runways fail, communities lose their only connection to hospitals, grocery supplies, and the outside world. Yet these critical pieces of infrastructure face mounting pressures. Climate change is thawing the permafrost beneath runways, creating instability that threatens $276 billion in Arctic infrastructure by midcentury. Meanwhile, aircraft manufacturers have stopped producing gravel-capable jets, forcing northern operators to retire their aging fleets. Canadian North retired its last gravel-ready 737-200 this year after 43 years of service, marking the end of an era for purpose-built Arctic aviation.
How Canada’s Remote Runways Get Built and Maintained
Unlike the United States, where the Federal Aviation Administration oversees runway upgrades as a matter of safety, Canada’s northern airports have a complex web of provincial ownership and federal support. “Each provincial government’s transportation and highway group owns and operates the runways,” Vitale explains.
“I actually managed the operations of the 28 gravel runways in the province of Ontario,” adds Moe Fenelon, Director of Aviation and Infrastructure at Midwest. The funding challenge becomes acute when major upgrades are needed. Provincial budgets often fall short of the millions required for runway reconstruction, forcing administrators to seek support through Transport Canada’s Airports Capital Assistance Program.
Yet accessing these funds requires meeting strict criteria that don’t always align with northern realities. The program mandates year-round scheduled service, a requirement that can exclude seasonal communities.
“When they need to do major upgrades and maintenance like resurfacing, it’s a complicated process and very expensive to crush gravel to upgrade runway surfaces,” Fenelon notes. “Our role is to get into a deep understanding of their issues and what kind of outcomes they want when they treat those runways.” He emphasizes the critical distinction between temporary dust control and long-term stabilization. “We need to help them understand the differences so they can make informed decisions about investments to improve runway longevity and reduce maintenance costs.”
The Logistics Challenge of Northern Region Construction
The Arctic construction season operates on nature’s unforgiving schedule. While southern contractors enjoy year-round building windows, northern runway projects compress into a frantic race against winter’s return. The window for work typically opens in mid-June if conditions cooperate, and by mid-September, crews must evacuate before temperatures plummet and darkness descends.
“There’s a very short window for us to accomplish what we do,” says Dale Andrews, Vice President of Civil and Infrastructure Solutions. “You can’t do this type of work in the middle of winter, and their winter season is extraordinarily long.” Andrews coordinates multiple weekly calls with customers, orchestrating a complex ballet of materials, equipment, and personnel across Canada’s most inaccessible regions.
The logistical challenges multiply when everything must arrive by air. Many runways under construction are the very lifelines needed to deliver construction materials, creating a circular dependency that requires precise planning. Equipment that southern contractors take for granted may not exist in remote communities, forcing teams to adapt on site.
“When we show up to support either the airport operator or contractor, they may not have all the equipment we expect,” Fenelon observes. “When we get to site, we have to be flexible with our plan and adapt to those challenges. The skill level and experience are not the same as a larger mainstream contractor in more easily accessible communities where there’s road access.”
Weather compounds every difficulty. “When we get days of rain, it stops our installation,” Fenelon continues. “We have to wait for the surface to dry out and then go back at it again.” With permafrost thaw already imposing $11 million annually in maintenance costs on Alaska’s northern district alone, these delays carry serious financial consequences.
Engineering Solutions for Extreme Environments
Creating runway surfaces that withstand Northen Region extremes requires more than conventional engineering. As permafrost temperatures rise at 0.6°F per decade across Alaska and northern Canada, traditional construction methods fail. Freeze-thaw cycles cause water to expand by 9% when freezing, shattering aggregate bonds and creating dangerous surface irregularities that ground aircraft.
“A fundamental mission is to be a steward of the environment where our products are environmentally sound,” Vitale emphasizes. “The chemistries are uniquely suited to the cold environment of northern Canada, operating from minus 50 to plus 70 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit.” Unlike temporary dust suppressants that wash away within months, Midwest’s formulations create permanent molecular bonds with runway materials.
The science addresses a critical gap in Northern Region infrastructure. Traditional dust palliatives provide 70% effectiveness initially but degrade to 20% within a year before disappearing entirely. Midwest’s EK35 system maintains performance for four years or longer, transforming loose gravel into surfaces with pavement-like strength.
“The products don’t leach out or wash out. They stay where we put them,” Vitale explains. “They chemically bond permanently to the gravel and then bond the particles together to create this matrix that is the runway surface.” This permanence proves essential as climate patterns shift. “Traditionally the whole northern part of Canada is frozen. Now with warming, that alters the strength of the runways. When you’re operating on frozen runways, it’s absolutely no problem. Our system is designed so as temperatures change, the runways maintain structural strength for aircraft to land rather than being too soft.”
Preparing Gravel Runways for Modern Jets
The retirement of Canadian North’s last gravel-capable 737-200 this year marks a critical inflection point for Northern Region aviation. Boeing ceased production of gravel kits decades ago, deeming them financially unviable as southern airports upgraded to pavement. Now northern communities face an existential question: how to accommodate modern aircraft never designed for unpaved surfaces.
“The airlines, airport owners, ministries of transport, and Transport Canada are looking to develop a runway surface that will service newer aircraft,” Vitale states. “Whether it’s the Havilland Dash 8, Boeing aircraft, or other modern high-efficiency, bigger payload, high-performance aircraft.” The challenge extends beyond simple surface improvements. Modern jets lack the protective gear that allowed older planes to deflect gravel from engines and fuselages.
Traditional solutions offer little hope. “There’s always the idea of concrete pavement, but that’s not practical or workable,” Vitale explains. “There’s the possibility of asphalt runways, but because of climatic conditions and permafrost, that may not be workable either.” Permafrost thaw, now affecting vast stretches of the Northern Region, would buckle and crack conventional pavement within seasons.
Andrews frames the company’s objective simply: “We want to do what we can to support communities and extend the longevity of existing gravel runways and improve surface quality so they can be managed and supported by larger aircraft.” The approach involves creating surfaces dense enough to eliminate loose material while maintaining flexibility to accommodate ground movement.
“We are looking with our system to create a runway that might qualify to service new modern aircraft,” Vitale notes. The two-to-four-inch blended applications represent the frontier of this effort, transforming gravel into surfaces that meet modern aviation standards without the prohibitive costs and impracticality of traditional pavement in Arctic conditions.
The Long Game of Infrastructure Partnerships
Northern infrastructure projects unfold across timelines that would astonish southern developers. A runway reconstruction that might take months to execute requires years of preliminary groundwork, working through red tape spanning multiple government levels and Indigenous organizations.
“When we work with government-operated and funded airport programs, we may start engagement four or five years before the project actually happens on the ground,” Fenelon reveals. “You have to spend a couple of years getting approval for a gravel source, approval for funding, and design of the runway reconstruction.” The complexity deepens when considering material logistics. Products must arrive via winter roads the fiscal year before construction, then wait through spring thaw until the brief summer work window opens.
Success demands more than patience. With over 100 gravel runways already treated across North America, Midwest has learned that technical excellence alone doesn’t secure projects. “We have to build trust. It really is a partnership,” Vitale emphasizes. “We manufacture and develop products, but we sell results. We don’t sell products. It requires engagement on our part and their part to work together for project success.”
The human element proves especially critical given workforce challenges. “The key is having really good staff employed and retaining that good staff,” Vitale notes. Training becomes an ongoing investment. “We’re expanding our team to provide the services, support, and training,” he continues. “We’re engaging more in training airport runway management and maintenance staff on how to use our products initially and maintain that runway over time.”
Andrews emphasizes community importance: “The employees doing maintenance, everything about these airports, requires us to work with and understand community needs. Without them, we really wouldn’t be there.”
Long-Term Value in Short-Term Seasons
As climate change accelerates Arctic warming and infrastructure costs soar, the economics of runway maintenance increasingly favor permanent solutions over temporary fixes. The mathematics are compelling: while temporary dust suppressants cost less initially, their repeated application and diminishing effectiveness create a costly cycle that drains provincial budgets already stretched thin.
“It’s more economical and beneficial to take a proactive approach to preserving your runway rather than postponing until major rehabilitation or full reconstruction is required,” Vitale argues. “As soon as you see dust on the runway after construction, your material and investment is blowing away and deterioration has begun.” With runway reconstructions now exceeding $20 million and permafrost damage adding millions more annually, the stakes for choosing the right preservation strategy have never been higher.
The company’s focus for the next 18 months points to this long-term thinking. “We’re working collaboratively with different governmental agencies in different provinces on longer-range programs for maintenance and repair of their current runway systems,” Vitale explains. “We’re working with them on five-year, ten-year, twenty-year plans. How can we help them achieve and optimize those long-range plans by extending the money they’re putting into runways now?”
Fenelon captures what’s ultimately at stake: “One of the most important things we do is provide remote runways with surfaces that are consistently reliable no matter the weather or conditions. A runway treated the Midwest way with EK35 will be invariably reliable and safe.”
For the remote communities depending on these gravel lifelines, reliability isn’t just about economics or engineering. It’s about ensuring that when a child needs emergency surgery or a family needs groceries, the runway will hold. In Canada’s North, that assurance can mean everything.
AT A GLANCE
Who: Midwest Industrial Supply, Inc.
What: Developer and manufacturer of environmentally sound chemical solutions for dust control and soil stabilization, specializing in extending the life of gravel runways in extreme Northern Regions and Arctic conditions
Where: Headquartered in Ohio, USA
Website: www.midwestind.com
