Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 15/98) - It's a hunter's greatest tool but too often in the North firearms become the weapon of choice in personal wars with the self, with neighbors, even family.

Over the last two years, for example, RCMP in Fort Good Hope have had to deal with six shootings in Colville Lake, a Sahtu community of fewer than 100 people.

Most incidents involve young men who had been drinking when their tempers flared. All incidents have resulted in charges and convictions.

People think they're immortal," said RCMP Cpl. Greg Brown last December following a rash of shootings.

"Somebody is going to get hurt. We're talking about high-powered rifles," Brown said. "There's no respect for firearms, absolutely none. It's a dangerous situation."

The problem goes far beyond Colville Lake. In 1996 tragedy descended on Kugluktuk early in the morning on Sunday, Aug. 24. A family dispute ended with a murder-suicide and five orphaned children.

Police believe Edward Akhiatak killed his wife, Debrah, with a high-powered rifle, then turned the gun on himself.

The children, ranging in age from two to 13, were placed in the care of relatives.

"We spoke with some witnesses in the course of the investigation and they said there had been an argument earlier in the evening," said Kugluktuk RCMP Const. Robert Smith. "There was also a lady in the house sleeping. She heard the shots and then found the bodies."

Akhiatak's suicide is one of long string in Kugluktuk, according to Department of Social Services statistics.

Three months ago, A Kugluktuk man shot and killed three of his children and then turned the shotgun on himself.

Steven Ayalik, 31, committed the murder-suicide around 6:30 a.m. after returning from a night of drinking.

The dead Ayalik children were Michelle, 13, Allison, 7, and Alexander, 4. Their eight-year-old brother, Mark, managed to escape the family's home and was put in the care of another family member.

The children's parents had been separated and their mother was en route to Kugluktuk at the time of the incident.

Then, just two weeks ago, a group of Kugluktuk girls found a collection of guns in a shack. The body of one of the girls, a 10-year-old, was found on the beach later that day.

Gordon Bolduc, a hamlet councillor, described the unemployed Ayalik as "a person in limbo."

"Something like this affects the whole community," Bolduc said. "We've had a serious problem over the last several years with attempted suicide and suicide."

Last year, a former Rankin Inlet resident, Ronald Richard Thatcher, was convicted of shooting his business partner in the leg.

"It was an accident," Thatcher told territorial court Judge Michel Bourassa just prior to being sentenced to 16 months in jail. "I swear to God I didn't mean to shoot him."

Bourassa also prohibited the 42-year-old Thatcher, who has been living in Yellowknife since shortly after the incident, from owning any firearms for the next decade.

"Guns are not the last resort, they're no resort at all," said Bourassa. "There is no doubt in my mind that (Thatcher) had made up his mind to get the better of (his victim) with a gun."

Court heard that Thatcher and the 22-year-old victim, his partner in a drywall and painting firm, had a drunken fight 36 hours before the shooting.

"This kind of mindless drinking -- resorting to firearms to solve problems -- these kinds of confrontations have to be deterred," said Bourassa.