Whatever happens with a plan to hike air traffic control fees across the country, Northerners can rest assured that little has changed when it comes to national transportation policy -- they're still left out of the loop.

Twice this year Northern pilots and their employers have been faced with harsh, and in the first case, absurd, regulations that betrayed a lack of understanding of the North's unique nature.

After all, if you had told a Northern pilot 20 years ago that Ottawa would make it illegal to carry passengers and canoes on the same float plane at the same time, you would have been laughed all the way back to the border.

But that's exactly what happened.

Then Nav Canada, the private agency that took over air traffic control from the federal government last year wants to impose a fee structure that could end up costing Northern airlines as much as 30 per cent more to fly cargo and passengers. Because of the increased reliance on cargo, Northern air carriers will be hit much harder than will southern counterparts, which depend more heavily on passenger traffic and so won't face such an onerous fee increase.

Nav Canada is now talking about backing off the plan, but the fact that they got as far as they did suggests a Northern-knowledge deficit similar to the federal regulators who still oversee the industry.

It's as if everyone in Ottawa has forgotten about a third of the country's land mass.

Maybe it's always been this way. But we can't help but wonder if those faceless bureaucrats who come up with these outrageous schemes are feeling overworked because of all those budget cuts. Transport Canada has been slashed more than any other federal department since the Liberals took office in 1993. Maybe they just went a bit too far.

On the other hand, we usually manage to convince the powers that be of the error of their ways before it's too late. At least somebody is listening.

The human mind is a wide-ranging, eclectic and some times astonishing thing. But none of this explains the obsession some people have for digging up the bones of long-dead Englishmen.

The death and disposal of Sir John Franklin, who perished 150 years ago looking for the Northwest Passage, has become a growth industry. There seems to be no end of time and money devoted to finding out what happened to this stubborn and doomed explorer.

Surely there are more fulfilling things to do up here. Unless of course, they are all insurance adjusters, fighting the next-of-kin's claim.

Charity is best begun in the home, but when someone like former MLA Peter Ernerk says people in the far eastern reaches of Russia need help, we believe him.

Life expectancy in many communities there is only 45, and in one community the death rate is 12 times higher than the birth rate. Medical personnel are often hard to come by and services such as clean water and electricity are sporadic at best.

"The people can not be allowed to die off," said Ernerk in a special report to News/North. He is right. As more fortunate neighbors, in the North, we should pay heed to Ernerk's comments and share our wealth and knowledge with our brothers and sisters in Russia's far east.