Being a sidewalk super is fun!

Since the first week of July, I have been a sidewalk superintendant. My wife likes to kid me that I have outgrown “Tonka” toys but that my enjoyment of big iron remains fast.
I watched as “Makkinga” Contracting as they ripped up Second Street from Central Avenue to Mowat and then Mowat from Second to Third Street.
John Makkinga began the company in 1989 and today he and his five children operate the company. The job in Fort Frances had them replacing a deep sewer line on Second Street and he brought to work the 3500 Insley excavator that he purchased in 1989. At that time it was the largest excavator in Northwestern Ontario.
It is a loud machine, but John operated the digging with deftness and could scrape a half-inch of soil along the sewer bed to lay a section of pipe.
He kept three trucks revolving in the long 12-hour days as the soil from the hole that was moving east was replaced on the section of the roadbed where the pipe had been replaced.
There his son David operating another backhoe took the dirt and back filled the hole. The Makkinga crews were replacing the second street water line simultaneously. There was never a slack moment as the crew worked.
They ran into problems. The first was discovering a thick layer of concrete that was the old road-bed on Second Street. The second was the Bell cement conduit that ran along the side of the road and crossed over at Mowat Avenue. Both were unexpected problems.
John told me that Makkinga Contracting has 40 excavators. Four were in Fort Frances for the project. Dave Makkinga who is heading up the project also brought in John’s lovingly restored 1975 Dodge “Big Horn” dump truck.
With good weather, the crews jumped ahead of schedule and were available when the sewer collapsed in the 400 block of Second. The Town of Fort Frances asked them to come in and do the repairs. It was a messy job. With the collapse of the pipe, the sewage had no place to move. Beginning at the man-hole at the centre of Victoria and Second, the crew from Tuesday afternoon through late Wednesday night were able to replace almost a half block of sewer, connecting homes on both sides of the street with new sewer pipe and those homes on the south side of the street with new water connections.
As one of the crew said, “We like to dig” and we are really good at sewer and water replacement. Shortly after 9:30 Thursday night, the 400 block of Second Street was reopened to traffic. Makkinga had used three backhoes; a vibrating compacting roller, a bulldozer and grader to quickly bring the street back to function.
I watched in fascination as the 100 block of Second Street was torn up, the crews scrambling to set the sewer pipes at proper grades and the replacement of water lines. The work went quickly. And once the sewer and water were replaced, everything slowed as grades were set for curb work and paving. A specialized concrete crew came in and in a short week, the curb and sidewalks were replaced.
Paving is not far behind and a I will get to watch a different crew put the black top down. Sometimes being a sidewalk superintendant is fun.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher