NNSL (Nov 30/98) - Dogrib community members are celebrating the milestone first flight at the newly-constructed Rae-Edzo airport.

Piloted by Air Tindi vice-president, Peter Arychuk, and first officer Bernie Lewall, the Air Tindi de Havilland twin otter landed smoothly at 2 p.m. Nov. 20, marking the first landing.

According to Mayor Dan Marion, the people of Rae-Edzo have made sacrifices in a lot of other areas of community development in order to build their airport.

"What you see out there is more than an airport," he said. "It is two playgrounds and an improvement to the local graveyard and several other projects put on hold this year so that we could pool all of our resources behind the program."

Funded by Human Resources Canada, the 700-meter runway and access road was built this past summer solely by the Dogrib community members. The runway is also expected to be lengthened to about 1,700 meters and built to accommodate large aircraft like Boeing 737s and Lockheed Hercules. Future plans also include airport service facilities such as a passenger terminal building and warehousing to support users.

But, money is tight, as pointed out by airport engineer Bob Johnson who said that the time window is critical for the next phase of development.

In order to complete a hard year-round runway surface for airplanes to land on, they need to access gravel. That gravel can only be reached via a winter road for about three months this coming winter. If they cannot secure funding in time, the whole project risks being delayed another year.

The people of Rae-Edzo see the construction of this airport as a necessary way to compete with Yellowknife's dominate position as service centre of the North.