Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 24/01) - After 32 years of service with the Northern Transportation Company Ltd. President Cameron Clement retires September 27. Terry Halifax spoke to him recently:

Cameron Clement

News/North: So when did you move to Hay River?

Cameron Clement: I came here in April of 1969.

Like most people, I came North for a summer job -- I was going to university at the time.

I was leaving university; I was going to go travelling and a friend got me a job as a labourer at NTCL.

N/N: What were you studying?

CC: I was going to be a teacher, but it was the Sixties and I wasn't all that academically keen. I was more looking for a good time than I was looking for an education. (laughter)

N/N: I heard you took up residence at the Zoo for a while?

CC: No, I can honestly tell you, I never took up residence at the Zoo -- not on a full-time basis.

I spent every evening there, I guess in my first season of my employ, but I never lived there.

I lived in camp for the first year and the second year a couple of co-workers and I bought a little cabin on Lionel Gagnier's property at Mile 12. We lived out there on the river for about three or four years.

N/N: Did you work your way up through the ranks or did you go back to school?

CC: No, I never went back to school.

I wasn't out in the yard for very long; if the truth be known, I think I was only a labourer for about four hours and something happened. That was a good thing, because I could never have survived if I had to unload boxcars for the rest of my life.

I got transferred into the office and I started doing the clerical stuff; the rating and the billing and all that stuff.

Eventually, I looked after the bulk oil and the pursers in those days.

In 1973, when there was much talk of a Mackenzie Valley pipeline, I became the terminal manager in Hay River.

I worked in various places, but most of my career was spent in Hay River.

I spent four years in Tuk during the Dome Petroleum days. I was in McMurray for a year, when the company had an operation on the Athabasca and I was in Churchill for a season.

I used to work back and forth with the summers in Hay River and then we went to the head office in Edmonton for the winters, until I moved here permanently in 1991.

N/N: You were instrumental in moving the head office North?

CC: Yeah, I worked on that and in 1995, we opened the office here and we severed our ties with Edmonton.

It was a significant move, but also the correct move. We are a Northern company and we should be here.

N/N: What kind of impact would this pipeline have on NT, if they do decide to go through with it?

CC: It would have a tremendous impact -- our present fleet couldn't handle it.

N/N: I hear NT is currently shopping the world for a new ship builder?

CC: Yeah, we haven't really done any replacement or augmentation to the fleet in a long time, so we are in the process of looking at some new builds.

It's a long process, a complicated one and an expensive one.

We're well along in the process and if everything goes according to plan, we could have a new tug and barge as early as 2003.

And it will be different than what you're used to seeing here. It will definitely be an ocean-class tug and barge; it won't be used on the river, it'll be used in either the Western Arctic or the Eastern Arctic.

And unlike our fleet, which only works five months of the year, this will be a vessel that will be employed year 'round. It will work its summers in the North and the rest of the year it will be employed nationally or internationally.

N/N: With or without this pipeline, NT is poised for some tremendous growth in the North?

CC: Yes and the rebuilds we are contemplating are not based on the pipeline. Our business is changing; we're getting busier all the time and we've certainly diversified the company. We're heavily involved in the Eastern Arctic, which is a new venture for us.

This year is probably the most successful year we've had in the past 10 years. We're running all our boats, we've got lots of cargo and we've been blessed with excellent weather and high water.

We're the only ones who really like the rain -- a good day at NTCL is when it's raining.

N/N: What role will NT play in this new deep sea port?

CC: Oh, the Isaac Lake thing at Bathurst Inlet?

If that port goes through, there will be a new delivery system. You're going to see the advent of big ships rolling in through the Arctic; bringing in fuel and leaving with ore -- that's the concept.

NTCL is an Inuit marine company and we currently do the business in that area. I would see NT's role as doing our traditional resupply and maybe hubbing it out of Bathurst.

These huge ships are not going into Cambridge Bay and they're not going into Paulatuuq. Somebody still has to go into all of these places and that would be our role.

We are 100 per cent Inuit-owned and therefore, we would want to play a role in any development in the North.

N/N: So when is your last day of work?

CC: The 27th of September.

N/N: And what are your plans?

CC: I have no plans.

We built a house in Pigeon Lake and I'm going to take some time off and if I get bored, I'll do something.

I think learning how to relax is going to be a chore in itself.

N/N: So do you golf? How will you spend your days?

CC: I think I golf, but anyone who's ever golfed with me, knows that I don't. But I certainly love the game.

NTCL has been very involved right at the start with the golf course here. It was our Cats and our employees who cleared the original course one winter.

Everybody at NTCL enjoys that course.

But, I like to golf, I like putter -- I'm a putterer, I guess. I like to bake -- I'm a baker.

I have no expectations, so I can't be disappointed.

The real reason I'm leaving the North, is that we have grandchildren who live in Calgary.

They just grow up so fast and if you're not there to see it, you miss it.

I also think that when you're president of a large organization like this -- and the only reason I am president is because everybody else died -- six years is plenty.

After six years you should step aside. You have implemented your ideas and it's time for somebody else to come in with new ideas.

N/N: Is your wife worried that you might drive her nuts?

CC: She said, 'I married you for life, I didn't marry you for lunch.'

No that's going to be a trick. She's been living on her own for a year down south while she built a house.

She's sort of treated me as a visitor, so she might have been looking for an escape.

But it's always an adjustment, particularly in our business. We cram a year's worth of work into five months, so it's always to be an adjustment when a sailor comes home.

N/N: I get the impression from your employees that they enjoy working for you; that this really is a family atmosphere.

CC: The company only has 350 employees and you should know everybody. We all have a stake in it.

I have fun here. You should have fun in your job; you spend more time at work than you do at home, so it should be a pleasant place to work.

N/N: Have they named a successor to your job?

CC: Yes. There's a successor coming in here today, as a matter-of-fact.

A fellow by the name of Cliff Abraham, who comes from a shipping company on the Great Lakes.

N/N: What kind of advice will you give him?

CC: Well, he's a Southerner...I once gave a speech at a Meet the North Conference on the difference between Southerners and Northerners.

You have to be sensitive to the Northern issues, you have to become a Northerner and you have to live here.

Get to know and trust the people that you work with; give them the freedom to do what they do best and support them.

Get to know the North and get to love it. If you don't, you're not going to stay for long.

N/N: Are you going to miss it?

CC: I don't think you can devote that much of your life to a region or a job and not miss it.

My formative years I've spent worried about ice, worried about water, worried about forest fires, worried about fog, worried about pollution, worried about cargo or no cargo or too much cargo...

It's going to be a real change to suddenly wake up and say, 'I don't want it to rain anymore, I want to go golfing!'

But sure I'm going to miss it; I'm going to miss the people.

I really have made some lifelong friendships in this organization. The NTCL family extends all over the place.

I guess for most of who came up here at that time, this was an adventure. This was leaving Edmonton, it was leaving Toronto, it was coming North and you're on your own.

The memories were just great; it was hard and it was fun. We were a group of like-minded people and it was the year of sex, drugs and rock n' roll.