Fort McPherson (Sep 04/06) - Peter Francis stands outside the Tetlit gas station in Fort McPherson and looks unimpressed.

He is watching workers flatten the hamlet's main road, compressing the stones and adding a "top coat" of liquid asphalt designed to hold gravel together.

"It seems like they add gravel or do something every year but it never works," Francis said.

"Every year they come back. They should have done it like Inuvik and paved the road from the get-go.

"They could have saved a million dollars."

As a hunter, trapper and fisherman, Francis has lived his whole life in Fort McPherson. Now 70, he said the place has changed immeasurably in the last few decades.

"Oh, there is too much to tell!" he said, when asked how the hamlet was different 50 years ago.

Fort McPherson has gained new houses, a school, a larger population and a police station during his lifetime - not to mention the Northern Store, the Dempster Highway and the Fort McPherson Tent and Canvas shop. But Francis said the main road has been consistent as long as he's walked it. Depending on the season, he said, it is either dry and dusty or wet and sloppy.

"People can wear clean clothes but it still sets in," he said.

Now an elder who often walks around and talks to people in Fort McPherson, Francis said it's funny to see the same problems resurface year after year.

"All this time, it has stayed about the same," he said.