Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 14/00) - Construction on the road to Yellowknife from Rae-Edzo will resume this fall to improve another 15.5 kilometres of Highway 3.

Transportation Minister Vince Steen announced the award of the $11.2 million contract last week would go to Pelly Construction Ltd. of Whitehorse.

The contract partners Pelly with several Northern companies, including Nishi Khon/SNC, RTL Robinson Enterprises Ltd. and Matonabee Petro.

"The unique thing about these contracts are, that we are hiring 50 per cent local and 90 per cent Northern workers," said GNWT department of transportation's director of highways, Rob Nelson.

The recent work on Highway 3 has completed reconstruction of 12.5 kilometres of road from Rae-Edzo and 4.5 kilometres from Yellowknife.

Nelson said the work on the Rae end is moving more quickly because of extra dollars allocated to training workers.

"Because of high unemployment in the Rae-Edzo area, we were able to get extra funding towards training," he said. "Last year, we had over 70 people complete our contractors training program."

The workers trained last year are expected to return this year.

"It just made sense to bring the workers back for this contract," he said.

The training program will take the workers beyond skills needed for road construction, Nelson said.

"They're trained in skills that could easily be transferred to mining," he said. "Drilling, blasting, heavy equipment operation, that type of thing."

Pelly Construction spokesperson Norm Kelly said that work scheduled for this year will begin off the highway and will include right-of-way rock excavation, quarry development, embankment construction and culvert installation.

Kelly said work will continue until November and will resume again in March of next year. The construction is expected to be completed by Sept. 2001.

Highways hopes to have the whole road from Rae to Yellowknife rebuilt in 10 years.