Premier Smith at Oil Sands Expo, 2026
FORT MCMURRAY — It isn’t just pipelines on the mind of Premier Danielle Smith as she looks at the next phase of energy development in Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo.
During a visit to the region for the Oil Sands Expo, Smith said Alberta has begun planning and engineering work on a permanent road connecting the Fort McMurray area with La Loche, Sask., and suggested the project could be a candidate for acceleration.
The route has been discussed for years, initially in part as another evacuation option following the 2016 wildfire.
Smith said the road could now serve a broader economic purpose.
“We’ve been in active planning for that,” Smith said. “Probably is a good time to talk about accelerating that.”
She said Alberta’s Transportation and Economic Corridors ministry is managing hundreds of projects and needs to prioritize those with the greatest potential economic impact.
Smith said she would raise the La Loche connection again with the ministry.
“I’ll put this on the radar and we’ll see if it can be accelerated,” she said. “But it’s definitely needed.”
A permanent connection could also link Fort McMurray more directly with one of the largest uranium developments underway in Canada.
NexGen Energy’s Rook I project is under construction in northern Saskatchewan, about 150 kilometres north of La Loche in the southwestern Athabasca Basin and roughly 170 kilometres from Fort McMurray as the crow flies.
The project received its final federal construction approval from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in March and formally broke ground in August.
NexGen estimates pre-production capital costs at about $2.2 billion, with construction expected to take roughly four years.
If the schedule holds, production could begin around 2030.
The underground mine is centred on the Arrow deposit and is designed for production of up to 30 million pounds of uranium oxide annually.
NexGen says that would make Rook I the world’s largest single source of uranium once fully operational.
The project also illustrates potential economic overlap between northern Saskatchewan’s uranium industry and the industrial workforce already established in Wood Buffalo.
Both industries rely heavily on engineers, geoscientists, heavy-equipment trades, transportation, logistics and large-scale industrial construction.
Mining and oilsands operations also share expertise in areas including environmental monitoring, land management and reclamation, creating potential opportunities for companies and workers on both sides of the provincial boundary.
Fort McMurray has historic ties to northern uranium development as well.
Waterways and the former Northern Transportation Company terminal were part of the transportation and logistics network serving uranium operations around Lake Athabasca and farther north.
A permanent La Loche road could restore that east-west connection in a modern form, linking two major energy-producing regions while providing another transportation route for northern communities.
Smith said the road’s value is no longer limited to emergency access.
She said the proposed connection could also provide another route toward export markets and become part of a broader northern economic corridor.
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