By the township's 2022 road study, Road 509 carries about 615 vehicles a day and Road 506 about 533. Both are former provincial highways. Frontenac County owns no roads. The township keeps both up.
The Webequie Supply Road is one of four roads in the province's plan for the Ring of Fire. The province's review of the Webequie road's environmental assessment says fewer than 500 vehicles a day are predicted once it opens. The Ministry of Transportation went to tender this year for a construction manager to build it. The province is paying for the road, and it pays the township's grant. Plevna is about two hours from Parliament Hill. Nakina, near where the Ring of Fire roads begin, is more than 1,200 kilometres by road from Ottawa.
North Frontenac's grant this year from the province's community infrastructure fund is $890,657, for a township that keeps up 344 kilometres of road, more than three times the length of the Webequie road. That is about $2,589 for each kilometre for the year. At the $900 million value estimate on the Daily Commercial News listing for the construction-manager tender, the 107-kilometre Webequie Supply Road works out to about $8.4 million a kilometre. At that estimate, one kilometre of the Webequie road equals more than nine years of the township's grant at this year's level.
The largest of this year's surface-treatment jobs is on Road 509, budgeted at $835,690. This year's grant is smaller than last year's. The province announced in 2021 that it would double the fund to $400 million a year, and this year it goes to 423 small, rural and northern communities. The province's unconditional grant to the township rose 14 per cent from last year, to $2,248,900, and a separate provincial grant of $1,022,000 is going toward stormwater work in Plevna. Council puts part of the unconditional grant toward roads.
The township has to keep an asset management plan. A provincial regulation requires it. The plan council adopted last year puts the yearly cost of keeping up all the township's infrastructure at $6.7 million, against about $2.1 million a year from its regular funding, not counting grants.
North Frontenac's 2022 Road Needs Study says a fully funded ten-year plan would include $1.8 million a year for resurfacing and $1 million a year for capital needs. Over ten years that is $28 million, equal to the value estimate for about 3.3 kilometres of the Webequie Supply Road. This year's budget includes "a 3.0% capital levy increase," the treasurer's report says. The draft budget council saw last December put this year's surface treatment at $1.2 million for about 13 kilometres, half the length of hard-topped road the township's own yearly target calls for.
School boards are funded through the province. In June, the parent council at Clarendon Central Public School in Plevna, the township's only public school, asked council for support. Council endorsed the parents' request that the Limestone District School Board review staffing at the school. It backed their request to restore the school's senior-class teacher from part time to full time. The same motion supported taking the school's "unique needs" to MPP John Jordan, with a request for support for access to academic and student support resources. The motion carried.
Later that month, Deputy Mayor Roy Huetl met online with the parent council, school staff and Superintendent McDonnell. His report went to council in July. In it, he wrote: "It became quite evident throughout the meeting that the administration was not willing to support the letter sent by the CCPS Parent Council." He wrote that the superintendent "made it clear that staffing support is strictly based on numbers and the reduction of the head teacher allocation was set board wide." Council then voted that it "will continue to advocate for Clarendon Central Public School and will follow up when requested by Parent Council."
The four roads begin with upgrades to existing roads near Aroland First Nation and Nakina. New roads will run north from there to Marten Falls First Nation and east from Webequie First Nation to the deposits near McFaulds Lake. The province describes Webequie as a remote community reached by air, by water and by winter road, and its review of the Marten Falls road says that community is "only accessible year-round by airplane and for a few weeks per year by a winter road." The province says the roads would give Webequie its first all-season road to the rest of Ontario and connect Marten Falls to the highway network for the first time.
Marten Falls has had a boil-water advisory for more than two decades, according to Indigenous Services Canada. The province's review of the Marten Falls road's environmental assessment says the First Nation intends it "foremost as a community-serving corridor." It says the road could also support mineral exploration, forestry and tourism.
Wyloo, an Australian company, owns the Eagle's Nest deposit. Its project page says the timing of construction and the start of production "is linked to the timeline of the current proposed road projects and infrastructure corridor." Wyloo's own project overview, dated January 2026, gives no year for construction or production and says its "final investment decision" will be "based on all season road timelines." In February, SNnewswatch.com reported that the timeline on Wyloo's Eagle's Nest web page had construction beginning in 2027 and production starting in 2030. On October 10, Wyloo's project page showed its path to development as a row of stages, from a feasibility study through permitting and construction to production, with no years on it, and said the company "is currently conducting a Feasibility Study" for the mine. The Webequie road and the Aroland upgrades are due to open by November 2030, the other two a year later.
Wyloo is owned by Tattarang, the private investment group of Andrew and Nicola Forrest, who were known as Australia's wealthiest couple until they separated in 2023, Canada's National Observer reported in November 2025. The Observer put Andrew Forrest's wealth at an estimated $36 billion and called him one of the 100 richest people on the planet.
The mine has divided several nearby First Nations, the Canadian Press reported. Neskantaga First Nation opposes it and asked Ottawa last fall for a federal impact assessment of it; in February the federal government decided not to designate the mine for one, and the president of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada said there are other means to address concerns about it. Nine First Nations have taken to court the provincial and federal laws passed last year to fast-track development. Neskantaga Chief Gary Quisess said of the province's road plan in March: "Our resources are not for sale." The Observer describes the Ring of Fire as home to the world's second largest peatlands, which it says hold an estimated 35 billion tonnes of carbon.
The province's budget this year is titled "A Plan to Protect Ontario." Its foreword says the government released a plan to "accelerate completion of construction on the all-season roads to the Ring of Fire five years ahead of schedule." John Jordan, the Progressive Conservative MPP for the riding that includes North Frontenac, posted a Ring of Fire map on Facebook this month. The map carries the province's "Protect Ontario" mark. His post begins: "We're delivering on our plan to protect Ontario, with shovels in the ground on all roads to the Ring of Fire, five years ahead of schedule."
Ground has been broken on three of the four roads. The fourth, the Northern Road Link, is the only one that would reach the deposits from the south. It has not started. The province's budget schedules its construction to start in the spring of 2028. The federal review of it is still at the impact-statement stage, with no decision.
North Frontenac council has backed a letter from the Municipal Finance Officers' Association of Ontario. It asks the province to make the doubling permanent before next year's grants are set. The resolution council passed on August 13 says the province "has not publicly committed to maintaining this level of funding beyond 2026." The township's asset plan leaves grants out: "It is best practice to develop AMP based on known funding and not considering Grants as they are unstable."
Roy Huetl is a candidate for council in this month's municipal election.