ENTERPRISE - When Eric Bertrand was a child, his father used to buy him and his brothers toy bulldozers for Christmas.

Eric Bertrand has opened a new Bobcat service in Enterprise. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

They would head outdoors into the snow to play with their toys and imagine working with heavy equipment.

"We'd go out there first and clear a road," Bertrand recalled with a laugh.

That was his first introduction to heavy equipment, and now he has launched his own business in Enterprise.

Bertrand is the owner/operator of Eric's Bobcat Service, which opened for business in January.

The 43-year-old said he started the business mainly to have something to pass on to his family.

"It's just for the young generation," he said.

His 13-year-old son Arry – which is Eric in the South Slavey language – is particularly interested in heavy equipment.

"My boy, he likes to do things like that," Bertrand said. "He always hangs around with me."

Bertrand also wants to help the community with his new business.

"I'm not trying to make a million dollars, just to help people," he said.

Bertrand is originally from Fort Liard, where he trained in heavy equipment operation close to 20 years ago. A visiting Aurora College instructor taught him.

Later, he operated heavy equipment – loaders, bulldozers, backhoes and feller bunchers – in the oil and gas fields around Fort Liard with Beaver Enterprises Ltd., a company owned by Acho Dene Koe First Nation.

Bertrand went on to work as a housing maintainer in Fort Liard before moving to Jean Marie River, where he returned to heavy equipment operation.

In all, he has over 15 years of experience in operating heavy equipment.

"I like being outdoors," he said. "I like doing stuff for people."

Just over a year ago, he and his family moved to Enterprise. That move was so his children could go to school in Hay River and so he could open his new business.

Bertrand said he has been planning to open a business for many years, adding that he slowly got together such things as a computer and a fax machine.

Enterprise is a central location to operate a business and serve a number of other communities, he noted. "There are lots of people all around."

Eric's Bobcat Service offers landscaping, construction, snow removal, labour and hauling services in the NWT, northern Alberta and northern B.C.

So far, Bertrand has been doing jobs in Enterprise, such as clearing snow from driveways.

Right now, he is the only employee of the new company, which has one Bobcat.

"Someday I'll get another Bobcat," he said.

Bertrand, who is a member of Acho Dene Koe First Nation in Fort Liard, also hopes to someday return to part-time trapping on a family trap line in northern B.C., where he owns a cabin and goes hunting every spring and fall.

His new company was launched with his own savings and some assistance from the GNWT and the Dehcho First Nations.

His wife, Tammy Neal, maintains a company website and does the books and other paperwork.

For a new small business, Eric's Bobcat Service has an impressive array of promotional items – key chains, hats, water bottles, sticky notes, pens and more.

It also has a unique logo featuring a lynx wearing a T-shirt displaying with the word 'noda', which is South Slavey for lynx or bobcat.