Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 05/99) - If you can't beat 'em, join 'em -- even if you are separating.

While the prime minister and the governor general joined Nunavut premier Paul Okalik in Iqaluit on Thursday to launch a new territory, the NWT quietly geared up for celebrations of its own new-territory status.

Never ones to sit idly by while their neighbours are throwing a party, some 25 communities across the Northwest Territories accepted $5,000 each through the government's Special Committee on Western Identity toward their own NWT '99 - Catch the Spirit festivities.

"It's up to them how to use the money," said committee co-ordinator Lynda Comerford. "The main criteria is simply that it has to be used to celebrate their identity."

While Yellowknife's celebration on the eve of division was, like Nunavut's, replete with politicians, good cheer, fireworks and emotion, the communities have planned to celebrate division in their own time and their own ways.

Enterprise, with a population of 80, threw a party on Thursday evening.

"We called it The Night of Many Fires just because there'll be so many bonfires around the NWT," said organizer and town councillor Chaal Cadieux.

Next door in Kakisa, Ka'a'gee Tu First Nation band manager Ruby Landry said the government money helped fund the annual winter carnival held on the weekend.

"We wanted to do something a little different than usual to celebrate division, so we threw in moose and geese-calling competitions," she said.

Some of the other communities had equally intriguing plans to celebrate division. Holman staged Easter Game Celebrations, including the, "construction of an iglu large enough to have traditional drum dances." The Nahanni Butte Dene Band planned a pancake breakfast for April 1, and Tuktoyaktuk is staging the Beluga Jamboree next weekend. Paulatuk had something even more ground-breaking planned for its celebration.

Recreation co-ordinator Bill Ruben said the hamlet had staged a logo competition. It received 50 entries and Grade 11 student Terry Thrasher's design won. It will be incorporated into a new hamlet flag and commemorative pin.

"We've had a couple of contests in the past, but this will be our first flag," he said.

Ruben described the flag as representing all aspects of Inuvialuit life on the Parry Peninsula. The images depict a polar bear in the ocean, a caribou on the land, an inukshuk and a star along with the phrase, "Southwind Capital." A community of 300 that bridges the culture of the eastern and western Arctic, Paulatuk will mark division with a feast and dance once the flag is ready for presentation later this month, Ruben said.

Inuvik is thinking along similar lines. The community, with strong Gwich'in and Inuvialuit representation, plans to develop a special exhibition for its Museum and Fine Arts Centre.

"We've got two large aboriginal land-claims groups living here, as well as a large Islamic community," said Senior Administrative Officer Don Howden. "It's a good melting pot of different cultures, and that's what we're going to celebrate and embrace through our museum -- we want something that's going to last more than just one or two days."

The communities have caught the spirit of NWT '99 and are offering a wide variety of parties and events demonstrating that -- even if Mr. Chretien couldn't make it, the show will go on.