TTHEK'EHDELI/HEAN MARIE RIVER - Jean Marie River First Nation's sawmill operation has been moved to a newly designed site with help of federal funding.

The project to design a new site for the sawmill was one of three forestry initiatives funded by $80,000 from the Canadian Economic Development Agency (CanNor). The territorial Department of Environment and Natural Resources oversaw the projects.

The sawmill, which is owned by one of the band's companies Jean Marie River Log Homes Ltd., was originally located approximately 2 km outside of the community on a narrow, muskeg lot, said Arnold Gargan, Jean Marie River First Nation's economic development officer.

Wet Ground conditions on the lot limited work to one or two months every summer. Moving heavy equipment and logs around the site was unsafe, Gargan said.

A new location was needed to make the sawmill profitable.

"We're just rich with trees and forest all around the community," he said.

Armed with a sawmill business plan and a forestry plan the band turned to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) for assistance.

Tom Lakusta, the manager of forest resources for ENR, said an expert in small sawmill design was brought in to design the new site. The project, which was completed last September, cost between $5,000 to $7,000.

In a separate project the band and ENR moved the sawmill, its generator and the existing stockpile of unprocessed wood to the new site in March

The sawmill is now approximately three-quarters of a kilometre from the community. It's an area that's been designated industrial and the plan is to run a powerline to it, Gargan said. There are also plans in the works to enclose the sawmill in a pre-fabricated metal, heated building so it can be operated for a longer season.

The sawmill might be used this summer to process some lumber, said Gargan.

One of the other two projects funded relates directly to the Deh Cho.

During the winter $20,000 worth of the funding was used to determine the need for a vegetation inventory for the greater Liard Valley and approximately 13 other communities in the territory that have forests. The inventory, which is done through aerial photos, identifies types of vegetation in an area including the quality of the forest and the different attributes of the forest.

The inventory would take several years because it's complex and expensive, Lakusta said. The broadest benefits of the inventory is that it allows forest wildlife managers to know what the forests look like and provides a baseline to measure changes against, he said. The inventory can also be used as a tool to decide if using a forest for timber or bio-mass is sustainable.

"It's a very flexible tool," Lakusta said.

The last vegetation inventory on the Liard Valley was conducted approximately 50 years ago.

The remaining bulk of the funding was used to conduct two wood pellet feasibility studies. The studies examined whether there's a business case for using wood in the territory to create pellets for the NWT market. One of the reports was released in March while the second was done with a private client and won't be released.

"It does look like there's a business case here," Lakusta said.