Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 12/00) - Long-time Yellowknife businessman Edward Madsen is dead after falling from a one-and-a-half- storey house Saturday in Fort Liard.

Madsen, 68, started Treeline Construction shortly after he moved to Yellowknife about 30 years ago and was working on the roof of a house in the Deh Cho community at the time of the accident.

He was flown to the University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton with serious head injuries that day but died the evening of April 9 after he was taken off of life support systems.

"I knew Ed for 13 or 14 years, since we stared working together in the North," said Bill Aho, president of the NWT Construction Association. "He was a very strong supporter of Northern business and the Northern economy. He was very much an asset to the North in the construction industry."

Madsen was originally from the Peace River, Alta. area and is survived by his wife and three children. A private funeral ceremony will occur Saturday.

Police are finishing investigating the incident but say foul play has been ruled out.

"When someone dies we just want to find out if anything criminal was involved in order to rule it out," said Const. Merle Carpenter from the Fort Liard RCMP detachment.

"We're just crossing the t's and dotting the i's. It's standard procedure."