Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 22/02) - It took Michel LeFrance just a couple of days of retirement to realize he didn't like it.

Six days after hanging his hat at Sept-Iles airport in Quebec, he had not only found another job, but was already in his car driving west across the country.

This February, LeFrance arrived in Yellowknife to take the reins as the city's new airport manager.

It's not LeFrance's first stop in the North. He first crossed the 60th parallel in 1967 when he landed in Frobisher Bay. He was in the middle of college studying bio-chemistry, but had spent up a student loan on skydiving.

In the North there were jobs aplenty and he saw an opportunity to make a good buck. He started working as an upper-air technician, floating high-altitude weather balloons and gathering the data that make weather science possible.

Over the years he worked his way up the Environment Canada ladder, then moved over to transportation in 1981 and began managing airports.

Yellowknife is his fifth airport. As airport manager, he oversees the operations of the entire airport, manages a staff of 23, responds to emergencies and presides over a $3 million annual operations budget.

"It's a very diversified job. It's very stimulating," he says.

He also co-ordinates a group of people most accurately described as a community: the airlines, the fuel companies, even the diamond companies that call the airport strip home.

"It's a very complicated system. You have to understand how each player is playing in the game," he says.

A new age for airports

Walking air-side isn't as easy as it once was. LeFrance is the head of the airport, but doesn't show it.

He gets a temporary pass for this reporter, then asks a security guard to open the exit door for him. He has his own keys, he says, but wants to set an example: security laws apply to everyone.

Outside, a Canadian North 737 is taxiing into takeoff position.

The whine of jet engines lingers over the wind-swept tarmac, then accelerates into an asphalt-rumbling thunder. LeFrance says he likes the sound of the jets, even likes their smell.

On a Friday afternoon, the airport isn't terribly busy. But the calm is deceptive. Unlike many other airports which are facing cutbacks in use and revenue, Yellowknife is seeing potential for increase.

An expanding Northern population is one reason for the growth; another is Yellowknife's location. The city is well-situated to become a stopping point for transcontinental jets flying a polar route from Asia.

But for that to happen, the airport's capabilities need to be assessed, and then possibly upgraded to accommodate the international traffic. Airlines flying passengers from Beijing to Los Angeles don't want their jets to wait in line for refueling in the Northwest Territories.

"We have to position ourselves in a strategic way to get those windfalls," he says.

One of LeFrance's biggest tasks over the next years will be the construction of a broad airport expansion. Plans are already on the books, and work could start in the next few years if money is made available.

That big picture plan is already guiding LeFrance's steps in short term work. For example, a recent study showed that whenever more than 80 passengers need to leave at one time, they can expect security check waits up to 20 minutes.

LeFrance wants to speed the checks by splitting the current single security line into two.

But he is checking that idea against the broader plan, to avoid spending money to build something now which will be torn down in a few years.

He approaches all of this from the perspective of one who knows the role aviation plays in the north.

"Up north, the airplane is probably the most important event of the day in a small community," he says.

But above all, aviation is his passion.

That's part of what wouldn't let him retire at 58, even though he had already put in 35 years working for the government.

It's also part of what brought him to Yellowknife.

"Of course" it's a passion, he says. "Or else I wouldn't be here."