Livingstone Airport

The primary reason for closure was the abandonment of the project it was built to support: the Canadian American Norman Oil Line (Canol Project). This massive WWII undertaking was deemed too expensive to operate in peacetime and was shut down in 1945. With the project's end, the logistical need for the airstrip vanished. Its extreme remoteness, with no nearby communities or significant economic activity, made continued maintenance economically unviable.

The site is completely abandoned and unmaintained. Satellite imagery shows a clearly defined but overgrown runway adjacent to the seasonal South Canol Road (Yukon Highway 6). The strip is unusable for most aircraft and is considered a historical artifact of the Canol Project. It exists as a clearing in the remote Yukon wilderness, occasionally visited by travelers on the challenging South Canol Road. It is not used for any official aviation or commercial purpose, though it might serve as a high-risk, unofficial emergency landing site for suitably equipped bush planes.

Livingstone Airport was one of a series of flight strips constructed during World War II as a critical part of the Canol Project. Its purpose was to provide logistical support for the construction and maintenance of the Canol Road and the oil pipeline running from Norman Wells, NWT, to a refinery in Whitehorse, YT. The pipeline was intended to secure an inland fuel supply for the US military's Alaska Highway and Northwest Staging Route operations. The airstrip would have handled military transport aircraft, such as the Douglas C-47 Skytrain (Dakota), ferrying personnel, heavy equipment, and essential supplies to this otherwise inaccessible wilderness location. Its history is intrinsically linked to this monumental, albeit short-lived, feat of wartime engineering.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening Livingstone Airport. The immense cost of restoring, certifying, and maintaining an airport in such a remote location, combined with a complete lack of local population or sustained economic drivers (like a major mine), makes reopening infeasible. It will almost certainly remain a historical relic.