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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Work resumed as early as Dec. 28 on the Tibbitt-to-Contwoyto winter road after taking a short break on the holidays.

"The camps are fully occupied now and all three camps are working hard on road construction," said Tim Tattrie, winter road project manager for Nuna Logistics Ltd.

Tattrie said the road is expected to open between Jan 26 and Feb. 1, a time typical for the road.

The ice must be at least 28 inches to open to traffic and must be at least 41 inches in order to be "highway legal" where the largest trucks can run with full cargo on the road system.

"The camps are fully occupied now and all three camps are working hard on road construction," he said.

More than 7,000 of loads amounting to about 230,000 tonnes of freight are expected to cross the road system this season across all parties involved in the joint venture, said Ron Near, director of winter road operations for the Tibbitt-to-Contwoyto Winter Road Joint Venture, to Yellowknifer in December.

Tattrie said this season's cold temperatures haven't gotten in the way of construction.

"What the guys do is take more breaks and they have hot areas," he said. "If they're working outside they jump in the work area, warm up, and then they go out and do a bit more work.

"It doesn't effect our operators too much because they all have heaters in their vehicles."

The Worker's Safety and Compensation Commission has regulations regarding the number of warm-up breaks employees need to take at certain temperatures but Nuna Logistics encourages employees to get to a warm up area of they find they're getting too cold, Tattrie said.

James Mackenzie, communications co-ordinator for the Department of Transportation, said construction on the winter road to Whati started Dec. 27 and is expected to be completed by the end of the week.

Although the cold weather has been challenging to work it, it was not more difficult than usual and good progress was made on the construction despite the temperature, he said.

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