Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 03/01) - Anyone who thinks you need to scurry up the corporate ladder to land an office with a view needs to meet Brian Wohlgemuth.

Every morning Wohlgemuth climbs up seemingly endless rungs carrying his lunch -- a small black bag and a can of Coke -- to his control center on the 281-Liebherr crane. He won't come down until the 10-hour day is over. - Nathan VanderKlippe/NNSL photo

Think 18th-storey office, plenty of windows, unlimited draughts of fresh air and the best view in Yellowknife. And it's got a feature people might pay millions for: it rotates. That's right, kind of like those restaurants where you pay $10 for a glass of water.

Of course, there is a catch, but only a minor one: Wohlgemuth's walk to work is about 185 feet longer than others at his workplace. That's 185 feet straight up.

Every morning Wohlgemuth climbs up seemingly endless rungs carrying his lunch -- a small black bag and a can of Coke -- to the boom on the 281-Liebherr crane. He won't come down until the 10-hour day is over.

He ducks and walks about 60 feet down the boom, his feet treading on a narrow steel-grated catwalk as he holds onto steel rods at hip level.

There is more wind up here than on the ground, and the view straight down is enough to make you suck in your breath. It can't be too windy, though. The crane can't operate when winds blow higher than 45 km/h. Even when the wind is gentle, the crane flexes and bends.

Wohlgemuth doesn't really notice the height. He's not frightened.

"It's not the job to be scared of heights," he says.

He's been skywalking since 1972, when he had his first shot at operating a crane. He had been working as a swamper, the man on site who hooks the crane to whatever needs moving.

The crane operator injured his back in a worksite accident and Wohlgemuth took over. It's not that simple any more though. Now you need to be a ticketed operator.

Life on the boom

Midway down the boom, he hops into a small cubicle surrounded by windows and warmed by a small electric heater.

On either side of his seat two windows extend straight out horizontally. A small, red radio sits on the window to his left. Wohlgemuth came up from Edmonton for this job, and he complains about having only one radio station to choose from.

He spends much of his day leaning over those windows, eyes trained on a huge length of steel cable.

The hook suspended at the end of the cable moves up and down and back and forth at the touch of the two joysticks he holds in his hands.

Between the two joysticks are a number of buttons. One is a horn -- not to warn low-flying planes but to give a heads-up to the workers below.

Compared to the 14-storey buildings in Yellowknife, this crane is fairly high. Wohlgemuth is doing the lifting to build a 14-storey, 106-unit apartment building across the road from St. Patrick high school.

He has worked higher, lifting the concrete, forms and steel needed to construct buildings as high as 35 storeys.

Even so, this crane is high enough that PCL Construction, the company doing the building, had to send notification of its location to local airports.

It's also powerful. It can lift 9,700 pounds at its tip. When it does, says Wohlgemuth, it bends a full eight feet.

And it's strangely anthropomorphic. Because there is no mobile crane in town that could lift 200 feet in the air, this crane builds itself. It's called "self-erecting" when the crane pushes up to allow structure segments to be bolted in place.

As he circles the crane, Wohlgemuth receives direction from a two-way radio crackling beside him. He is guided partly by the radio, partly by the hand gestures of the men below.

It's sunny, which is nice; shadows give a measure of depth that is difficult to discern from this height.

Right now the work is slow. PCL is doing the basement work, forming support pillars and the elevator column. Wohlgemuth will get increasingly busy in the weeks and months to come, until he finishes pouring concrete in September. But until then, one thing won't change: he will spend 10 hours every day perched atop the city, enjoying the best view in town.