For the 3,000 or so Yellowknifers who took the time to vote, it was a great election.

We have a brand new council with a good mix of old and new, a healthy combination of business, government and labor backgrounds.

The mayor's race, which is subject to recount, was exhilarating. Dave Lovell got a strong endorsement for his chairman-of-the-board style administration. Matthew Grogono received equally strong support for his platform of a more open city hall.

The new mayor will be bound to take the wishes of both camps into account.

The first order of business for council must be to remove the secrecy aspect from the weekly meetings with administration, as six of the eight elected alderman promised in their campaigns.

Presently, the public is barred from the meetings and aldermen are forbidden to speak to the media about what transpired. A group of well-respected ratepayers's and long time Yellowknifers were upset enough to bring legal action to get the meetings opened up. The election has done their job for them.

Weekly meetings may well be necessary, the secrecy is not.

The second task will be to establish a new relationship between council and city administration.

Whether city administrator Doug Lagore likes it or not, his management style was an election issue.

Neither his competence nor that of his staff has been called into question, but his single-minded, shrouded methods (eg. secret meetings) undermines council's democratic integrity.

To those who ran and did not win, Yellowknifers owe a debt of gratitude. The mayor's race was between the best people the city has to offer, while the aldermanic race gave a broad range of solid choices.

Last but not least, the acclaimed school board members bring experience and continuity to the city's education system.

Yellowknife should be well served for the next three years.

Residents of the Keewatin know how to deal with a blizzard.

Last week's hurricane-force winds shut down the region for three days with few emergency situations. As winds gusting more than 130 km/h swept across the tundra of the Eastern Arctic, people joined together to take care of those who were in need.

Several trailers blew over in Rankin Inlet and a handful of boats sank in Cape Dorset, but there was no loss of life and no serious injury. People safely found their way home to wait out the weather.

The highest of marine-type warnings, the hurricane winds forced a vessel to take shelter near Coats Island, just south of South Hampton Island, and stranded hunters from several communities out on the land. Nine Rankin Inlet hunters found shelter in a cabin about 60 kilometres north of the community, were well-prepared with plenty of food, and remained in constant radio-contact with operators in the community until their return.

It seems as though everyone in the region handled the effects of the storm with matter-of-fact ease. Even with the hurricane warning that did scare some people when it was first announced, the blizzard created no major problems. It's comforting to know that such emergency procedures are in place.

The Repulse Bay hamlet picked up residents and brought them to Tusarvik school where they spent two nights and drank hot chocolate. A similar emergency shelter was set up in Rankin Inlet for those people who may have been stranded without power.

An M & T truck could even be spotted delivering fuel in Rankin Inlet at the height of the storm on Tuesday.

It's easy to forget when we're bundled up in our homes that there are some people who battle the weather to provide services to the public. Without the shopkeepers that stay open to sell food, nurses to provide medical care, and the others who go out of their way to help the rest of us, storms like the one last week would be a lot more difficult to take.

The offer by some of the city's houseboaters to pay some sort of user fee has been noted on occasion over the past few months, but perhaps not loudly enough.

Though it now seems clear to just about everyone that the city has no authority to tax people who live on the water, which is Ottawa's jurisdiction, the idea that some residents could escape paying their fair share for using city resources always rubbed many Yellowknifers the wrong way.

So when it comes time to negotiate, the city should remember -- and take into account -- that the houseboaters have always been reasonable and never sought to shirk their responsibility.