Crooked Lake Airport

Economic. The airport was a private, unregistered aerodrome built and operated for the sole purpose of serving the Crooked Lake Lodge, a remote fly-in fishing and hunting destination. The airstrip was abandoned concurrently with the closure of the lodge it supported. Without the lodge's commercial activity, there was no economic or logistical reason to maintain the airstrip.

The site is completely abandoned and defunct. Satellite imagery of the coordinates reveals the faint, overgrown outline of a single runway adjacent to the lake. The runway is unmaintained, likely unusable, and is slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding tundra. There are no visible signs of remaining buildings, infrastructure, or any human activity at the site.

The airport's significance was entirely logistical and tied to high-end adventure tourism in the Canadian High Arctic. It served as the exclusive air access point for guests, staff, and supplies for the Crooked Lake Lodge, which specialized in fishing for Arctic char and lake trout. The airstrip, likely a gravel or tundra runway, would have accommodated specialized bush planes (such as the DHC-6 Twin Otter) capable of landing in rugged, remote locations. It represents an example of the private infrastructure required to operate commercial ventures in one of the most isolated regions of the world.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the airport. Re-establishing an aerodrome in such a remote and harsh environment would be exceptionally expensive and logistically challenging. A reopening would be entirely contingent on a new, significant economic driver, such as the establishment of a new tourist lodge or a major mineral exploration or mining project in the immediate vicinity, neither of which is planned or anticipated.