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Sweat and inspiration

Horseshoe Nails & Bowhead Whales
with Bill Gawor
Guest columnist
Wednesday, June 11, 2008

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Not all that long ago, the military based in Ottawa got a little excited when out of the blue, a strange runway showed up on satellite photos where previously none had existed.

It just suddenly appeared on a limestone shale beach, just 70-odd km south of their DEW Line at Hall Beach.

And what a massive airstrip it was, at 70 m wide and at least 1,500 m in length.

It could easily accommodate intercontinental bombers!

They immediately sent in a fuming and angry team to investigate.

It seems somebody at the territorial government level in Yellowknife forgot to inform the military that a junior mining company had filed an application for such a project.

Since officials figured it would take years to come up with the consultants, blueprints, heavy equipment and most of all, millions in cash, the report ended up on a shelf collecting dust.

Nevertheless, with only a single D4 Cat, a backhoe and a white pickup truck dragging a heavy Ibeam as a grader, a gang of stubborn Inuit and a few down-home Europeans, who were just as stubborn, were able to carve out a runway that same summer.

And they did it under budget.

This, apparently, was back in the 1970s, since the truck was still there this past summer displaying Alberta plates from that era.

Since then, the equipment has been wrecked and cannibalized for parts and will eventually have to be barged out.

Even while I was there, a driller flew in by chopper with a fuel pump.

In less that 10 minutes he was off again, on his way back to the drill site. Shortly thereafter the drill was turning again, making him a bonus.

That's how thing get done in the Arctic - 99 per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration - something I wonder if those who draw paycheques at the territorial level will ever learn?