The lunacy of speed

Reports of snowmobilers speeding within city limits are cause for serious concern.

While it's been a fact of life for years that snowmobiles have been getting faster -- the latest models now rolling off the assembly lines are capable of reaching speeds as high as 250 km/h -- that doesn't mean anyone should actually drive that fast. Quite the contrary. Yet speed limits are regularly ignored.

And with city bylaw officers now clocking machines going 127 km/h in a 30 zone, we don't have to think too long or too hard to see we have a potentially lethal problem on our hands.

We only have to go back five years to the tragedy of Scott Toohey's death to realize how speed and people don't mix. Toohey, who was walking home from work across Frame Lake on a December afternoon -- home to his wife and two young daughters -- died instantly when he was hit by a speeding snowmachine driven by a 16-year-old.

It was that senseless death that spurred the city to adopt speed limits on the city's lakes.

But after five years of enforcement, the city's bylaw department reports that "people seem to have forgotten all about that and they're out there being absolutely stupid."

While the city recently bought two Yamaha snowmachines to patrol the city, we agree that it's impossible and far too expensive for them to be everywhere at once, let alone launch into high-speed chases that could get someone killed.

While nothing short of a helicopter SWAT team would be able to catch up to these speed demons, it's still up to us, as registered drivers to obey the law.

Those that don't should be subject to the full weight of the law, including fines high enough to deter drivers from repeating such acts of stupidity.

Probing questions from Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen about a Yellowknife real estate deal make some people uncomfortable, but they are justified.

The people involved in the Lahm Ridge Tower transaction have close ties with Premier Don Morin and rumors abound as to what went on with the sale and an eight-year government lease.

We are not dealing with the successful son from Fort Resolution, Don Morin, friend to many in the North where helping friends and family is a strong tradition.

Instead, Morin is the Premier and when he took the job, his obligations as a leader require friendships stop at his office door. The more confidence the public has this is the case, the more freedom and moral authority Morin will have to get the tough jobs done.

Every few months, sometimes weeks, the Internet community is assailed by well-meaning members passing on warnings of computer viruses to everyone they know with e-mail.

The sad truth is, the virus alert itself is the virus. It spreads throughout the Net because people new to the Net -- meaning everyone at some point -- aren't experienced enough to recognize a hoax when then see one.

The next time you see something warning you of a message that will erase your hard drive, remember that simple messages with programs attached are harmless, and the cure is a simple one: it's called the delete key.

One of the best things about being the editor of a community newspaper is that people who don't live here, who are not exactly clear where Inuvik is, who hold vague ideas that we keep polar bears as pets, get attacked by Arctic foxes on Mackenzie Road and string rope from the rearview mirror of our trucks to our doorknobs so we can find our vehicles in the morning whiteout, call with questions about the town.

Like, do we walk our polar bears on a leash or just let them run loose?

But the Drum is contacted at least once a week by people from the South who want to know, first, what the prospects for Inuvik are, and secondly, what it is like to live here. They never come right out and say it, but the undercurrent of the questions, especially from the businesspeople who may be considering an investment here are, "Is your town dying?"

And of course it isn't. Dying towns have a smell to them. They are full of old people who can't sell their houses and the downtowns are full of empty storefronts. Inuvik has neither.

Aklavik grabbed the slogan, but Inuvik may be the town that is not going to die. We're all waiting for the next big thing; we just have no idea what the next big thing is going to be.

Could be oil. Could be nickel. Might even be tourism. It's going to be something.

Take oil: industry experts are predicting that in three to five years oil companies will return to the Delta to re-evaluate some of the monster finds like Taglu and Parson's Lake.

Technology has found a way to convert natural gas into crude oil. Now emerging from laboratories at Amoco, Exxon, Syntroleum and others are ideas for producing crude oil, diesel and gasoline from natural gas.

Lower production at Prudhoe Bay is already putting pressure on oil companies to replace reserves they've shipped south, fast. Exploration programs have kicked into high gear in the Alaskan Beaufort and have brought down the cost of exploration on our side. It's only a matter of time before companies begin nosing around here, with ideas about shipping Delta oil by tanker to Prudhoe if there is no pipeline south to Norman Wells. If that pipeline is ever built, of course, linking known onshore finds with the massive shallow offshore reserves, the Delta will eclipse Alberta as the nation's oilpatch.

For every story heard about one company selling off its Arctic drilling gear, there's another outfit buying the stuff.

And with our dollar hitting historic lows, Canadian exploration, supplies and transportation are a hell of a cheap option for U.S. companies. That has also made Inuvik an inexpensive destination for American tourists, who are about the only people who'd find it inexpensive.

We don't know what the future holds, but what's the worst that's going to happen? The price of oil is going to plunge, the army is going to close its base, the territory is going to split in two and downsize what's left of government? Been there, done that.

We've been down as low as you can go and we let our polar bears run loose. Now we have nowhere to go but up.