Photo courtesy of the BV Lakes District Twitter 

On Thursday, February 4th at 8:40AM a snow plow drove over the The Kispiox Bridge, which crosses the Kispiox River just before the confluence of the Kispiox and Skeena rivers. The bridge is located approximately 15 kms north of Hazelton.

Kispiox is a community of around 1000 people and many of them work outside of the community, using the Kispiox Bridge to get to their jobs in Smithers, Telkwa, Witset or Houston. When the plow went over the bridge, the driver failed to retract the wing blade completely, damaging the timber structural beams on the bridge.

One woman, a resident of Kispiox Valley was in her car behind the plow and stopped to take photos of the damage, noting that the plow did not stop, or perhaps didn't notice the damage they had caused.

"There is not an easy detour, as you'd have to use backroads coming from the Alaska Highway", as River Brady, Kispiox resident mentions in our interview, "a friend calculated it, and to use the [only detour available to Kispiox residents] it would be a 4 and a half hour detour."

This is one in a long history of contentious points between the residents of the Valley and the road maintenance company, Dawson Road Maintenance.

Complaints have been sent to the Ministry of Transport regarding poor driving conditions on already difficult winter roads, but residents have been vocal that Dawson Road Maintenance is not up to the job, posting photos of fallen trees left on the road for days, uneven grated roads, and enormous potholes.

The residents are fed up and this most recent incident had residents stranded in (or out) of Kispiox for 2 days, then open to light vehicles, and finally now the bridge has been opened to vehicles under 8 tonnes to cross.

Then, last night (February 8th at around 9PM), another update came from the Kispiox Band Council Facebook page, a backslide occurred on the 23rd KM on Mittin Road, which means, once again, the community is unaccessible.

CICK News spoke with a representative from Dawson Road Maintenance about what happened last Thursday as well as River Brady who is fed up with these road conditions.

The Ministry of Transport did not grant our interview request but sent a document with updated road conditions.