Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Aug 14/98) - As evening light touches bushes and shrubs along the Dempster Highway, Freddy Blake moves levers inside the cabin of a back hoe to lower a brush cutter and mulch a clump of foliage.

As the giant machine whirrs, Blake enjoys the solitude, the surrounding nature and the satisfaction of making NWT highways a little bit safer.

"You can get at a bush by going down on it or by going sideways," he says while taking a short break and chugging on a can of Sprite.

"You can knock down trees as it will grind up willows. Then it leaves chips all over the highway."

And though Blake appears every bit a veteran, Aug. 6 was his first day on the job.

He is working on contract and may be doing highway maintenance for the next couple months, depending on when things are completed.

Past jobs have included highway maintenance as he worked for the GNWT department of transportation before he was laid off.

Now he is working 12-hour shifts, but he doesn't mind.

"Time goes fast, it's amazing," the 51-year-old says.

The lifetime Fort McPherson native has been married to Cathy Blake for 18 years and the two have three children: Leona, 18; Vernon, 17; and Brent, 13.

Though he has spent most of his working life on roads, outside of work, Blake likes to drive the Dempster in his pick-up truck.

"Once in a while I go fishing," he said. "Mostly it's hunting."

As a Metis, he said he is able to shoot caribou from the Dempster Highway, which he does frequently.

Blake said he had heard of various proposals to help conserve the porcupine caribou and how the porcupine caribou management board has recommended a 500 meter no-hunting corridor on either side of the centre line of the Dempster from km 68 to the Peel River for all hunters.

"Everybody does it," he said of shooting the animals from the highway as well as leaving guts by the side of the road.