Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (Aug10/01) - It'll all be over by the third week of August.

By then the noise, dust, and road barricades will be replaced by the best blacktop money can buy, according to the engineer in charge of Fort Simpson's paving project.

Last week residents started seeing the fruits of seven weeks digging on the village's main street. The sidewalks were finished, and residents say they look great.

A few children who couldn't resist the temptation tried carving initials into the drying concrete after crews went home one night.

"They had to fight the concrete because it was setting," says Kevin Mulligan, in charge of the project. The section was re-done the next day.

The $800,000 worth of sidewalks and paving cover 670 metres of downtown -- from the town boundary at the visitors' centre to Thomas Simpson school. Besides looking good, the project created 35 jobs. The paving comes four years after the village started replacing sewer and storm drain pipes in 1997.

"We don't want to have a grade failure underneath the asphalt," Mulligan says of the weeks of digging and grading.

The road at one section by the school had to be completely excavated and re-filled with new gravel because the ground was too soft. Mulligan says that's because Fort Simpson used to be two islands rather than just one. Years ago, "they just filled it in with whatever they could find."

If heavy trucks are kept off and the surface kept clean, the blacktop will last many years, he promises.

"You'll have an urban-standard street that's better than anything Yellowknife's got."

Sudbury-born Mulligan spent 21 years of his career in Ontario working for governments. He moved to Fort Simpson in 1998 to accept a job with Rowe's construction, the paving project's main contractor.

"I was interested in the area because it looked like a good place to raise my grandson and retire," he says.