When two snowmobiles collided on the dark trails around Fort Good Hope, a shockwave of mourning rippled through the Northwest Territories.
Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Fort Good Hope (Oct 30/00) - After a week of mourning, the entire village of Fort Good Hope gathered Friday to bury three young men who died of injuries from a snowmobile crash.
Businesses closed and snow machines that usually roar through the town throttled down out of respect for the dead men and their grieving relatives.
Killed in the crash were Kevin McNeely, 21, and Albert Lafferty, 22, drivers of the snowmobiles that met in a high-speed, head-on collision.
Jason Russell Dean, 24, died last Tuesday in an Edmonton Hospital.
Two survivors of the collision are in hospital in Yellowknife and Edmonton.
"I'm trying to cope with the situation the best I can," said Michel Lafferty, Albert's father.
The shock of the unexpected deaths was too much for an elderly relative who was seriously ill in an Edmonton hospital. She died after hearing the news and her passing added to the grief in Fort Good Hope.
The funeral service for the three men drew most of the residents in the close-knit town to the gymnasium of Chief T'Selihye School.
"Just about the whole territory came here," Lafferty said. "There is a lot of support from different communities."
Among the mourners was NWT Premier Stephen Kakfwi.
"People are rallying," said Kakfwi, who was raised in the community. "They know Good Hope by itself can't manage it."
The Premier set aside plans to tour his Sahtu constituency before the legislature opened to spend the week at Fort Good Hope.
Kakfwi was touched personally by the tragedy. Dean, also known as Jason Pierott, was the common-law husband of Kakfwi's adopted sister and the son of his first cousin. McNeely is the son of one of the premier's closest friends.
"It's like that for everybody here," Kakfwi said.
Kakfwi helped Fort Good Hope chief Delphine Pierott deal with the hundreds of mourners who converged on the community.
"There are people here from Aklavik, Inuvik, McPherson, just about the whole community of Colville Lake is here, Deline, Yellowknife," said Kakfwi.
Enbridge Pipelines donated $11,000 to charter a DC-3 to fly friends and relatives from Yellowknife. Buffalo Air flew people home after the funeral.
"The airport looked like a small version of LAX," said Const. Craig Seafoot of the Fort Good Hope RCMP.
The need to house and feed visitors stretched resources to the limit. Kakfwi said most homes opened their doors to visitors.
The school was closed for the week. A soup kitchen was set up in the school gymnasium, which was also pressed into service as a dormitory.
An elderly woman donated pots of stew. Hunters brought in moose. Colville Lake donated a plane load of fish.
"The grief has brought us together and brought out the best in people," said David Cook, band manager of the K'Asho Got'Ine First Nation.
"It's too bad that it takes something like this to bring out the good side of people."
-- With files from Jack Danylchuk, Richard Gleeson.
