Ice road the key to early construction at Gahcho Ku

This winter, about 600 tanker truck loads of material will be hitting the Tibbitt to Contwoyto winter road to reach the site of the proposed GahchoKudiamond mine.

De Beers and Mountain Province Diamonds have received permits to carry out advance work at GahchoKu before major building begins next summer.

You have to start somewhere, says Tom Ormsby, director of external and corporate affairs at De Beers. We need to put in some fuel tanks and things like that.

A special pioneer permit allows the company to have up to 180 people on site to prepare for future work.

This winter, De Beers plans to build more permanent housing for up to 140 people and bring in large earth moving machines, dump trucks and drills. They also plan to build a new, 1,400 meter airstrip to allow for year round access.

But for now, the winter road the one made famous in the television show,Ice Road Truckers is the only way to get materials in.

Ormsby says work this winter will be the beginning of starting to rough in where the roads may eventually be built.

The Northwest Territories department of transportation says 600 trucks is a relatively small contribution to the roughly 18,500 trucks that are on the road each year. However, the trucks could bring in about $170,000 in revenues.

Several N.W.T. companies have been awarded contracts to do the work.

Its all expected to start once the winter roads open in early February.

GahchoKu is located about 280 kilometres northeastof Yellowknife on Kennady Lake.

Once built, the mine will employ close to 700 people during the two years of construction and about 400 people during its operational phase. Thats expected to last about 11 years, when the company will mine about 31 million tonnes of ore containing an estimated 49 million carats of diamonds.

The companies still need to secure the final construction and operational permits before full construction can begin.

Public hearings on the companys applications are scheduled for early May. Permits could be issues sometime in fall 2014.