The scale of bush flying in Canada was greatly expanded during the development of iron ore reserves in Québec and Labrador. Hollinger Ungava Transport (HUT) flying mainly 19 Douglas DC-3 with 80 pilots hauled fuel, food, disassembled bulldozers and even cement for dams in the late 1940s and early 1950s. To accomplish this there were a series of short (3 500 – 4 000) foot runways constructed along the 359 mile QNS&L rail line at Mile 100, 134, 163, and this one at Ashuanipi - Mile 224, as well as Mile 263, Menihek and Knob Lake. Towards the end of construction Knob Lake was the 3rd most busy runway in Canada, after Toronto and Montreal.
The cost of the port, railway and mine worked out to $360 million or about a million dollars a mile. With up to 96 aircraft arrivals per day, HUT carried 170 000 passengers in 24 000 flights and 1 163 000 000 pounds of freight (the largest airlift in peacetime) before the project ended.
In the more recent past the Ashuanipi Airstrip was used by local bush pilots and outfitters for fishing trips and recreation but today it is unused except fpr the occassion drag by ATV's