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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
After decades of wishing, 10 years of planning, $202 million and four years of construction, the Deh Cho Bridge opened to traffic for the first time Friday afternoon.

Joe Handley, centre, launched the construction of the sometimes controversial Deh Cho Bridge as premier in 2007. On Friday he walked across the road link for the first time with granddaughter Kelly Handley, left, and Hilda Camirand, executive secretary to Premier Bob McLeod. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo

To mark the opening, dozens of Yellowknifers braved the -30 C temperatures and flocked to the bridge to be among the first to cross the only permanent road link across the Mackenzie River.

Among those who took part in the initial walk across, numbering around 200, was a lone cyclist: Rob Thom.

Thom is a transportation planner with the Department of Transportation and worked on the plan for commercial tolling on the Deh Cho Bridge. Thom is likely better known to Yellowknifers as the cyclist often spotted along Highway 3 - in rain, shine, sleet and snow. In fact, Thom calculates that he has ridden his bicycle just over 560,000 km since 1966.

After receiving requests from co-workers, Thom decided to bring his bike down by bus and was the first cyclist to cross the bridge as hundreds of people crossed the span on foot Friday afternoon.

"It was my first crossing of the Deh Cho Bridge as well," said Thom. "It was very slow going, I hardly had to do any work. With the cold weather, I wish I could have gone a little more at my own pace and worked up some body heat."

Linda Golding rode on a bus from Yellowknife for the opening, partly out of professional interest but for personal reasons as well. As executive director of the NWT and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers, the permanent road link will have a major impact on her clients, she said.

"Also, we've lived here for 30 years. We've travelled this roads lots and this is history, so I wanted to come for that reason," she said.

While Golding also walked across the bridge, she said the most moving part for her was the feeding of the fire ceremony, where Fort Providence elder Margaret Vandell led the crowd in praying to the four directions to bless the new bridge and those who will travel on it, while feeding offerings to a bonfire shortly before the bridge was officially opened.

Also walking the bridge was former premier Joe Handley, who launched the bridge project with the signing of a concession agreement in 2007 between the government and the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation that put the GNWT on the hook should the bridge corporation falter. The agreement was widely criticized, and the bridge corporation did fail, requiring the government to take over the bridge project and the escalating cost, from $165 million when shovels hit the ground in 2007 to $202 million today. But Handley is feeling vindicated these days and says that he would not go back to do anything differently if he could.

"I've always had really good responses from the Fort Providence people and from a sector of people throughout the North but especially the North Slave region," he said. "I think the critics are fewer and fewer all the time. It's done, it's over with and there will be no more debate about it - it's there."

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