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INUVIK, N.W.T. — Seismic lines etched into the permafrost from decades-old exploration are still visible in the 137 kilometres separating the Town of Inuvik and the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Coast.

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[np_storybar title=”Photo Gallery” link=”http://business.financialpost.com/2013/09/10/photo-gallery-bridging-the-gap-between-inuvik-and-tuktoyaktuk”]A gallery of images shows the majesty and the challenges of developing infrastructure in the Canadian Arctic. See more

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About 50 kilometres north of Inuvik, the remnants of industrial prospecting mark the location of the Parsons Lake gas field, discovered in the 1970s and one of three proposed to anchor the moribund Mackenzie Valley pipeline. Today, they are an uneasy reminder of the ecologically fragile terrain northern infrastructure must traverse.

“When you put marks in the tundra, it never really goes away,” says Mike Parkes, 32, a helicopter pilot, pointing the throttle on his AS-350-B2 machine north along the Arctic peninsula.

It is a lesson that informs an ambitious road-building project under way on the edge of the Beaufort Sea. Work is set to begin this winter building a highway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, in a throwback to former Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s much-vaunted — but ultimately unrealized — 1950s “road to resources” campaign to connect the Western Arctic and Canada’s southern provinces.