Fort Simpson (May 26/03) - Participants in Edmonton's Meet the North conference heard something different from the Deh Cho this year: a solid proposal for a year-round land link over the Mackenzie River.

Members of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation made a well-received presentation earlier this month.

"When we did our presentation in the afternoon our little booth was full," said Michael Vandell, president of the bridge corporation. "We had lots of people come to us."

Although portions of the bridge work will be done by Northerner contractors, some specialized equipment will be needed to put massive pieces of the bridge in place, Vandell noted. Joint-ventures with southern companies are an option.

"We went and looked at what other aboriginal communities are doing.

Maybe they have some stuff that we want or we need," he said. "It was just to feel everybody out, what's out there."

The annual trade show, held in a hotel convention centre, provides a venue for business people and municipalities, all trying to promote their products and locales, respectively.

There are also presentations on a number of business-related topics.

Travelling chamber show

The Fort Simpson Chamber of Commerce had its trade show booth and four representatives there as well.

Unfortunately there weren't an abundance of investors -- executives from oil and gas companies were largely absent, said Sean Whelly, the Fort Simpson chamber's secretary/manager.

"Well, it's a lot of meeting other Northerners, I think," he said of the conference, adding that many former Northerners now retired in the Edmonton area tend to show up and ask about the NWT.

Most of the NWT's MLAs were present, so at least they saw Fort Simpson's business community actively trying to promote Fort Simpson, Whelly noted.

Yet with several hundred people stopping at the Fort Simpson trade show booth -- some of them tourists -- it was still advantageous, he said.

"We had a lot of tourism-related information out on the table and a lot of that stuff did get picked up," he said. "There's probably some benefit to that."