Four-year highway project to continue early in 2014
All-season road being being constructed in winter to preserve permafrost
Daron Letts
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 23, 2013
TUKTOYAKTUK
More than 100 workers have been completing the first Northern leg of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway project this month.
A crew works on a stretch of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway earlier this year. The first 18 km of the all-season road leading south from Tuktoyaktuk is being completed this month. - photo courtesy of Merven Gruben
|
Crews with E. Gruben Transport Ltd. are finishing the final two km of an expansion of the access road leading to a gravel pit south of the community. The 18-km portion now under construction will form the Northernmost stretch of the140-kilometre all-season highway.
About 130 workers are levelling the almost two-metre-high embankment, composed of gravel and sediment from the Mackenzie River.
"It looks very busy," said Transportation Minister Tom Beaulieu, who toured the work site for two-and-a-half hours earlier this month.
Beaulieu, deputy Transportation minister Russell Neudorf, and Nunakput MLA Jackie Jacobson travelled the length of the road a little more than a week ago, driven by outgoing Tuktoyaktuk mayor Merven Gruben of E. Gruben Transport.
"Parts were smooth, parts were rough," Beaulieu said, adding he saw numerous back hoes and trucks loaded with gravel at work all along the road.
The employment provided by the project is raising morale in Tuktoyaktuk, he added.
"There seems to be just a little more joy in the community," he said. "There is excitement in the school. Some of the parents have some income."
Tuktoyaktuk mayor-elect Darrel Nasogaluak said the boost of employment will help the festive spirit in the community for the holidays.
"A lot of young people are working and happy to be working out there. Everybody is happy there are jobs," he said on Dec. 14. "Work will be done in a week or so, so they will have the Christmas season off."
Nasogaluak, who is also on the Hunters and Trappers Committee, said he expects to see a community update from E. Gruben's Transport later this month or before work resumes in the new year. He plans to contact the company to request a tour of the work site in coming weeks.
Once completed, the highway is projected to reduce the cost of living for Tuktoyaktuk residents while boosting tourism potential in the region, as well as providing infrastructure for potential oil and gas development.
The road is raised above the permafrost to prevent the subsoil from thawing, which is also why much of the construction takes place in winter. Once completed, the $299 million highway will traverse hundreds of streams and other waterways, with more than 60 large culverts and eight to 11 bridges along its route, according to Kevin McLeod, director of Highways and Marine Services Division for the Transportation Department.
The three keys to building roads in this part of the North are "drainage, drainage, drainage," he quipped.
Draining the land, and bridge and culvert work, is expected to provide some work in the summer months, Nasogaluak said.
Construction is scheduled to resume early in the new year to extend the highway south, which will provide about four months of work. Meanwhile, in Inuvik, construction on the southern end of the road is slated to resume in January or February.
Northwind Industries, a 100-per-cent Inuvialuit-owned company based in Inuvik, oversaw the first Inuvik phase of the highway project this past summer. The company expanded five km of Navy Road to create the southernmost tip of the eight metre-wide, two-lane highway.
Working at a rate of about 15 km per year, crews with E. Gruben's Transport, working south toward Inuvik, and Northwind, heading north to Tuktoyaktuk, are projected to connect and complete the highway within four fiscal years. About 200 workers will be on the job on each end of the highway during the major construction later this winter.
Upon completion, the $1.3 million formerly used to build and maintain the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk winter road will contribute to highway maintenance costs, according to McLeod. About 40 construction jobs will continue as road maintenance jobs after the highway opens.
The federal government committed $200 million of the $299 million project.
Beaulieu said he plans to tour the Inuvik end of the highway project in January.
The winter road from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk has not opened for the season yet.
The Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk ice road is still under construction, and not yet open to the public traffic. The Department of Transportation estimates the ice road will open this week, depending on the ice conditions, according to Gurdev Jagpal the department's regional superintendent in Inuvik.
