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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Remote road connects the dots in province

By: Alexandra Paul

Posted: 07/1/2012 4:15 AM | Comments: 0

Premier Greg Selinger and Bloodvein Chief Roland Hamilton take an escorted tour of the construction of the Long Body Creek Bridge. (HANDOUT)

Linking Manitoba

The province, with federal and First Nations partners, officially opened a new road Friday at Bloodvein First Nation, 210 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. It's the first road to link a remote community to Winnipeg since 1979.

It also marks the first stretch in a 1,000-kilometre road network to the north and east side of Lake Winnipeg.

Manitoba has committed $1.2 billion to the massive construction, at a rate of $75 million a year over the next 15 years. As part of that, the province announced $15 million in contracts for five years for Bloodvein to clear wilderness and crush granite.

Four bridges will link Bloodvein to Winnipeg by 2014.

They include:

-- A $5.5-million replacement bridge opened at Wanipagow

-- A $4.5-million bridge under construction over Loon Creek.

-- A $14-million bridge under construction at Long Body Creek.

-- A multimillion-dollar bridge over the Bloodvein River is to be tendered this fall.

-- East Side Road Authority

BLOODVEIN FIRST NATION -- Backed by heavy equipment and road builders in bright yellow flak jackets and hard hats, Premier Greg Selinger was all about the road Friday.

Manitoba's premier led a delegation on a flight north to Bloodvein, to open a five-kilometre stretch of gravel highway that is hugely symbolic here.

It's part of the first permanent land link to Winnipeg for a remote community. And it was built with First Nations know-how and labour.

"You stand here on a corner of a road like this and you think it might not be a big deal but it is," the premier said. "It is a very big deal and you did it on time and under budget. That's better than most governments."

The road is a junction. It includes a two-kilometre gravel road west to lakeside Bloodvein. A three-kilometre stretch links to the Long Body Creek bridge to the south, where builders still have 27 kilometres left to build to link it to the highway and Winnipeg.

A work crew of 80 First Nations road builders managed the five-kilometre feat over the winter. They finished a job in three months that would normally take a full year.

Selinger flew into the community, 210 kilometres north of Winnipeg, with Ontario MP Greg Rickford, parliamentary secretary to Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan.

The official delegation included Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Eric Robinson, and Ernie Gilroy, CEO of East Side Road Authority, plus his senior design team of bridge and road engineers.

The province also issued $15 million in contracts to Bloodvein to push the road farther over the next five years. Some of that work is already underway, thanks to a joint partnership with Stirling Ducharme, a Métis contractor and road builder from St. Laurent.

Bloodvein Chief Roland Hamilton said in the two years since the project began, this remote Ojibwa First Nation earned enough money to buy its own heavy equipment -- and carve out two quarries to build hundreds of kilometres of road north.

Robinson said the best part of the work so far is what it proves: "It represents a federal and provincial partnership and what we can do with First Nations."

Pickford said the federal investment is the first time Ottawa, Manitoba and a First Nation worked together on such a project. Even he was a little giddy.

"To think that we're going to be three hours away from Winnipeg. The people here will be able to drive in to see the Jets play," he said.

That kind of partnership will be crucial to finishing the project, road-builder boss Ernie Gilroy said.

With Ottawa on board, the network through 1,000 kilometres of wilderness could be laid in 15 years, half the time it would take for the province to do it alone, Gilroy said.

As the first permanent land link to the north and east sides of Lake Winnipeg, it opens up territory for ecotourism and development and gives 30,000 First Nations people their first all-weather land link to the rest of Manitoba, he said.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca

Linking Manitoba

It also marks the first stretch in a 1,000-kilometre road network to the north and east side of Lake Winnipeg.

Four bridges will link Bloodvein to Winnipeg by 2014.

They include:

-- A $5.5-million replacement bridge opened at Wanipagow

-- A $4.5-million bridge under construction over Loon Creek.

-- A $14-million bridge under construction at Long Body Creek.

-- A multimillion-dollar bridge over the Bloodvein River is to be tendered this fall.

-- East Side Road Authority

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 1, 2012 A10

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