Norman Wells Barge Landing (MTS)

Norman Wells, NT · Territorial · Government of the Northwest Territories - Marine Transportation Services · Mackenzie River

Norman Wells is a scheduled barge-resupply community on the Mackenzie River, served annually during the open-water summer season by Marine Transportation Services (MTS), the marine division of the Government of the Northwest Territories' Department of Infrastructure, which operates a fleet of eight shallow-draft tugboats out of its Hay River terminal on Great Slave Lake. The landing receives deck cargo and bulk petroleum products (fuel) for the town and the wider Sahtu region; in a typical run a single barge convoy carried roughly 491 tonnes of deck cargo and over 3.5 million litres of fuel for Tulita, Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope. A second carrier, Cooper Barging Services, also delivers to Norman Wells from Fort Simpson during summer. Service is highly weather- and water-level dependent: historically low water on the Mackenzie River basin caused MTS to cancel all barge deliveries to Norman Wells and Tulita in the 2024 season, and late-2023 sailings were similarly scrapped.