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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Much-needed renovations to the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre are likely to get underway after the spring thaw now that funding for the construction project has been secured.

Carol Van Tighem, shows representative of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency Greg Rickford a virtual demonstration of the Aurora Borealis at the visitors' centre just after $200,000 in federal funding was announced Tuesday in Yellowknife. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo

On Tuesday, Greg Rickford, parliamentary secretary to the minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor), visited Yellowknife to announce $200,000 in federal funding over two years for renovations to stabilize the building's structure, repair damage caused by frost heaving and improving its efficiency.

"With these funds, we'll be able to perform much-needed repairs to our building and make pre-emptive steps to prevent known issues from becoming serious problems," said Colin Dempsey, president of the Northern Frontier Visitors Association, which owns and runs the centre, on Tuesday.

The total cost for the two-year project is expected to be $410,000.

The territorial Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment has pledged $50,000 for this year's construction and the association is contributing $45,000 of its own funds. Fifty-thousand dollars has also been requested from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Also, the City of Yellowknife has been asked to contribute the remaining $55,000, said Tracy Therrien, general manager at the centre.

The federal funding will come from CanNor's new Community Infrastructure Improvement Fund, part of Canada's economic action plan for 2012. CanNor recently announced funding for 16 infrastructure projects across the three territories, with five projects in the NWT receiving more than $1.1 million.

"These upgrades will help create strong and healthy communities across the three territories," said Rickford. "The Government of Canada recognizes the tremendous opportunities in the North and is committed to working together with Northerners to create jobs, growth and long-term prosperity in the three territories."

The first phase of renovations this year will include upgrades to the lighting system as well as the addition of two wood pellet boilers, said Dempsey.

Currently, the visitors' centre consumes $29,500 in heating fuel per year. By the end of this year, the association hopes that the addition of two wood-pellet boilers will lower this cost to $12,700 in heating fuel per year, based on Arctic Energy Alliance estimates.

"The building is just not fiscally sustainable at current levels. The amount of money we're using - $50,000 to heat the building per year - it's just impossible to keep up with the bills so this is going to make everything a lot more workable," said Dempsey.

The plan for the final year of construction includes repairing sinking pilings and upgrading the facility's energy and water systems with the aim of lowering consumption.

The pilings holding up the 21-year-old building have begun to sink and heave as permafrost melts and is frozen again in the winter, said Elijah Forget, senior tourism councillor at the centre.

"Basically, we need the structure of the building repaired, and those pilings specifically," he said.

"The engineers who designed (the pilings) originally thought that they had it settled, but they didn't," said Yvonne Quick who was president of the association when the building was constructed, pointing to a crack in a beam supporting a second-level balcony. "It's been kind of an ongoing thing."

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