Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment has proclaimed today Heritage Day and provided an opportunity for us to reflect on the transportation heritage. In this light, I would like to acknowledge the contribution and the life of a northern pioneer of vision and action, John Denison, and those who worked with him.

John Denison passed away January 6th in Kelowna at the age of 84. While his passing marks the end of an era, his life and spirit of adventure and perseverance opened up tremendous opportunities and roads to resources. He proved that freight could be hauled long distances over ice roads with wheeled vehicles. John Denison helped engineer ice road construction when he began building an ice road to the Great Bear Lake silver mine in the late 1950s. The road was appropriately named Denison's Ice Road and was immortalized in a book by the same name written by noted American author Edith Iglauer. Working with Byer's Transport, the early pioneer of ice road construction, Denison and his crew -- including my father for a short time, Mr. Speaker -- endured bitter cold and darkness in construction of a 500-kilometre road from Yellowknife to Great Bear Lake.

Denison first moved to Yellowknife in 1946 as a member of the RCMP, and he served several years here before moving to Edmonton where he married his wife Hannah. He returned to the North for the winter road construction season and worked on roads to Bear Lake and Tundra and Discovery.

Also key in early ice road construction and development were Dick Robinson and Hughey Arden. Renowned for his knowledge of the countryside, Arden pioneered routes north through Great Bear as he scouted the way forward in the Bombardiers. Dick Robinson, also a major developer in the construction of ice roads and the move from cat trains to wheeled vehicles, his company, RTL Limited, has been a major player in the moving of goods and the development of northern transportation.

These pioneers, Mr. Speaker, were gamblers who knew when to take a chance. As it is today, ice is always the big factor and those involved had to work closely together with trucks, equipment and communications. In those days, they were not what they are today.

Without pioneers of this type and their contributions, we might not be enjoying the benefits of our current development. I wish to acknowledge the significant contribution of pioneer John Denison and other pioneers in our unique northern transportation system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause