Derek Neary
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (July 02/99) - Tourists don't know it yet, but there's a movement afoot to have the Deh Cho and Fort Nelson join forces in an effort to sway them into this region.

The inception of this strategy came last week with a visit from Fort Nelson representatives Linda Wallace and Jack Sime, who stopped in Fort Simpson and Fort Liard. Among their top priorities are improving Highway 77 leading into northern British Columbia and to create a joint NWT/B.C. visitor information centre, which would be located in Fort Nelson.

"The regional board has said we have a lot more in common with our neighbours to the north sometimes, than even Fort St. John," said Wallace, who is the director of regional development services for Fort Nelson.

"We are interested in knowing what the issues are for you and we're interested in how we can help each other..."

There has been plenty of protest over the horrendous condition of Highway 77 over the past several years, Wallace acknowledged. However, she said the town has taken a different approach in lobbying the British Columbia government to upgrade the road ever since the major gas find near Fort Liard was announced.

"We've really turned up the heat," said Wallace. "We've been taking a more economic focus, saying 'Look, there is all of this activity going on up there and somebody is going to service those fields. If we don't get on it, you can be darn sure Alberta's going to be all over it like a bad rash,'" she explained.

She added that while she and Sime were in the North, another contingent was in Victoria, B.C. meeting with ministers on the same issue.

"We've been instructed not to make any public announcements, but you can probably say we feel that we're making progress," she said.

The joint tourism centre, as she describes it, would be a boon to both parties. Incidentally, the GWNT had considered such a centre near the junction of the highway solely to benefit the NWT, but scrapped the idea of a feasibility study last year, noted Andrew Gaule, president of the Fort Simpson Chamber of Commerce. He added that, currently, the majority of north-bound traffic into the NWT comes through Alberta.

That fact was not lost on Wallace.

"The Northwest Territories is seen as a destination on its own. Fort Nelson is not...the more people we can get interested in travelling to the NWT via B.C., then they must come through Fort Nelson," she said, adding that Fort Nelson's existing tourist information centre can be found in the lobby of the town's curling rink. "If partnering with you will allow us to get a nicer facility while, at the same time, make it possible for the NWT to carry through with their project, then we both win."

In Fort Simpson, Wallace and Sime met with the Chamber of Commerce, the mayor, RWED officials and Premier Jim Antoine.

Everyone was very receptive and Antoine "offered to bring force to bear as well," she said.

Gaule said he's very much in support of a joint tourism information centre which would act like a "lure" for tourists.

"If that could be done, that would be tremendous," he said. "It's great to think there could be some ways of mutual co-operation between the communities."

At a following chamber meeting, the idea of a 24-hour tourist radio station for this region was proposed and well-received. There are already radio towers in place that could be used, Gaule noted.

"It would be a great way, and a cheap way, to provide tourist information," he said, adding that hundreds of thousands of recreational vehicles travel the Alaska Highway. Businesses throughout the region could advertise, in addition to other regularly updated information such as weather or road and fire conditions. A signal could also be established in Fort Nelson at some point and Fort Nelson could be promoted on the local station as well, he suggested.

If things go as planned there should be plenty of future opportunities to continue developing the partnership. Wallace called their visit an "introductory" one.

"On our way home Jack (Sime, the elected director of the Fort Nelson-Liard regional district) was already talking about, "When we go back next time...'"