Monday, August 10, 1998
During a time when the market for Northern art is softening, two initiatives provide the rest of the North with a very clear example of what is meant by the over-used term 'empowerment.'
In hosting and organizing increasingly popular, ever-expanding Great Northern Arts Festival, Inuvik serves up an example of the kind of pride in self-sufficiency that prevailed in the North not long ago.
Bringing together artists from across the North, the festival serves a number of purposes. It stimulates interest in Northern art, brings artists together to share ideas and techniques, introduces Southerners to Northern culture and hospitality, and provides a financial boost to artists as well as a community that has been harder hit than most in the NWT these last 10 years.
Artists in the Baffin, a place that has suffered setbacks of a different kind, are also seizing control of their fate.
Led by Baffin South MLA Goo Arlooktoo, their effort is aimed at preserving the opportunity for self-sufficiency the arts and crafts provide. Arlooktoo wants carvers to unite and speak with one voice to preserve the viability of their industry.
Should they need some inspiration, Arlooktoo and Baffin carvers need look no further than the Great Northern Arts Festival to see what co-operation, determination and a little pride can do.
Both initiatives -- there are a host of other examples that could be drawn upon -- provide evidence, if it was needed, that people, not gold, diamonds or oil, are the North's greatest resource.
Here's some good news from the ounce-of-prevention-is-worth-a-pound-of-cure division: the hamlet of Holman is investing in a radar gun to catch speeders on their ATVs.
Investing $2,000 to bolster safe driving in the community is money well spent. Like their winter counterpart, the snowmachine, ATVs are becoming faster and more powerful every year. Acting on the realization that speeding ATVs pose a danger is a prudent and responsible decision.
Now, if only that gun could be used to catch people who aren't wearing their helmets or are overloading their ATVs.
While our neighbors to the east are gearing up for the big split from the rest of the territories, Chipewyan from across the country made their own history this past week with the Denesoline Unity gathering in Lutsel K'e.
Occupying one of the largest land tracts of all of Canada's First Nations, the Denesoline (Chipewyan) people from Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the NWT made the journey to Lutsel K'e for the week-long gathering aimed at re-building their nation.
Despite the provincial and territorial boundaries that now play havoc with their traditional hunting and trapping, and day-to-day lives, Chipewyan strength is obviously alive and well and on its way to the sweat lodge.