Dawn ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 25/00) - What began as John Diefenbaker's dream of a national 'road to resources' has now become a residential playground stretching more than 120 kilometres through some of the most beautiful lakes and rivers outside of Yellowknife.

There is no other community quite like it.

It's a Sunday afternoon at the Prelude Lake Lodge and residents of the Ingraham Trail gather to hold an annual association meeting.

The room is dimly lit by propane-powered lights connected to copper pipes that run the width of the wall. The sound of the gas seeping through them is constant in the background as discussion on everything from pollution to electricity, or lack of it, take centre stage.

Tim Horton's coffee has been brought in from Yellowknife in containers and every so often parents tow children outside to visit the outhouse.

For those living on the Ingraham Trail, electricity, without a generator, is non-existent, running water is pumped from the lakes and heat doesn't come from turning up the thermostat.

Most residents say living without the amenities of city life comes at a price but the benefits are plentiful.

The Northern Lights sweep across the sky untainted by streetlights, caribou saunter through their yards and a chorus of wolves might convene to sing Ingraham Trail residents to sleep on any given night.

"I think it's a simpler lifestyle," says Pontoon Lake resident Francois Rossouw.

"But it's a very demanding lifestyle and it forces you to go outside, which is what I like."

Rossouw's home, like most on the Ingraham Trail, is powered by a generator. Others might use wind or solar power.

Once a month Rossouw drills a hole into the ice of Pontoon Lake, which sprawls out from his backyard, creating a majestic portrait of Northern landscape, to pump water.

The water fills a 1,400-gallon water tank and that does him and his family of five for a month.

"Most people use about 2,000 gallons per week," he explains, noting most water comes from a lot of flushing.

Compared to his neighbours Rossouw lives closer to the lap of luxury, because of his proximity to water, his family enjoys a low-flush toilet, not the compost or outhouse variety many of his neighbours use.

"We chose this lifestyle and that's what it is, a lifestyle," he says. "I don't need the benefits of what's in the city. You walk around here and you can hear the ice cracking and booming. We have caribou, moose, wolves, wolverines, lynx, minx, foxes."

Most members of the Ingraham Trail community are non-aboriginal. Many also hold professional and government positions.

A theme among them seems to be the familiar story of travelling North for work, losing the transient title and staying after being bitten by the Northern bug.

"I still don't have a plan," says Rossouw, who operates RWED's fur program. "I came to Yellowknife and now I've been here 17 years."

Rose Scott, a conservator at the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre, supports Rossouw's idea of the benefits of living on the winding trail.

"You fit in with like-minded people and there is a sense of community that is different from downtown," she says. "They are people who love nature and who aren't afraid to have to work a little harder for that lifestyle."

Scott admits she has the benefit of power because she lives closer to Yellowknife and within city limits. But her home, standing tall on the rocks overlooking the Yellowknife River, is still far enough away from the bustle of the capital to have all the benefits of seclusion.

A road with history

The Ingraham Trail was built during the John Diefenbaker years as part of the road to resources.

It was the former prime minister's plan to build a road around the east end of the Great Slave Lake and into Saskatchewan in an attempt to connect mining communities. The road ends suddenly at Tibbitt Lake about 120 kilometres Northeast of Yellowknife.

Sandy Holmes, one of the longest-serving residents along the Ingraham Trail explains what happened.

"When Diefenbaker lost the election a big stop sign went up at the end of the road," he says. "It's not even barricaded, but it's silly, really, because if you didn't stop you'd end up in the river."

Because the many lakes are stocked with multiple species of fish and the trail winds through beautiful Northern landscape, people began to build cabins and cottages along the trail.

"In order to prevent it from becoming haphazard we said cottages could only be in subdivisions," says Floyd Adlem, director of operations for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

In the early 1980s there were lot draws for property on the trail. Leases went for about $10 per year.

People jumped at the chance and two or three draws were held.

"It was very cheap," Adlem says.

"The idea was only to control development."

RWED minister Joe Handley has lived in one of those properties for the last three-and-a-half years in a house built there shortly after the draws were held.

He and wife Teresa bought it with the idea that retirement wasn't far off.

"And we fell in love with the house," Teresa says.

The Handleys say they have the best view of the Northern Lights from their bedroom where long windows sprawl from wall to wall.

"The weekends are like holidays here," Joe says.

But, of course, the lack of accessibility to power, running water and heat also took some getting used to.

"When we first moved in we had to learn to run everything," Joe says.

"In January I left to Europe and South America and had to leave Teresa in 40 to 50 below weather.

"The fuel gelled in the generator. I was on the phone giving her instructions but the power would go and then the phone would go.

Then she'd get the generator going again, I'd get back on the phone giving little bits of instruction before the generator and phone would go again."

The Ingraham Trail is such a unique community it is unlikely fellow politicians on business with Handley would have understood the significance of it all.

But it is also unlikely anyone could understand the hardships or rewards associated with living along the thread of civilization dangling northeast of Yellowknife, unless of course, they lived there.