Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Mar 12/01) - There's an exquisite circularity to Nicole Latour-Theede's story.
Thirty-six years ago, she was born in Yellowknife. At the time, just about every territorial mother-to-be who had enough of a heads-up on her labour gave birth at the hospital here.
Shortly after Nicole's birth, she needed to be moved to Tuktoyaktuk to be with her adoptive parents. At the time, the NWT Legislative Assembly did not exist. Its predecessor, the NWT Council, did.
The council was headquartered in Yellowknife, but travelled to throughout NWT. The objective was to ensure that the Council, which had both elected officials from the North and appointed officials from the south, was visible to all citizens.
Nicole was to be transported to Tuk on one of the Council's circuits. A young NWT employee named Jake Ootes held her on the flight.
"Jake," says Nicole, "was my stork."
Nowadays, Nicole gets to sit and watch as her stork and 18 other MLAs busy themselves with governing the Northwest Territories.
Nicole is now the sergeant-at-arms of the NWT legislative assembly. Ootes himself chuckles at the irony of the infant girl he once held now charged with the responsibility of ensuring his physical security.
In antiquity, sergeants-at-arms were charged with protecting kings, and later parliamentarians from those who would cause them harm. The position is mostly ceremonial these days, but Nicole is still responsible for the safety and comfort of the MLAs.
When she first became sergeant-at-arms, she worried about "being able to say 'order', and have it be loud and authoritative enough."
She also is responsible for the care and safekeeping of the mace. A mace is the symbol of a parliament's authority, and proceedings cannot take place unless the mace is placed in its cradle.
It's quite a circle from her maiden flight with the government to Tuktoyaktuk.
"My father was an Economic Development Officer in the 60s," says Nicole. "It was different."
Indeed. In the ensuing years between being shipped out of Yellowknife to her return, Nicole has lived in Old Crow, Hay River, and at the tender age of 30, was elected mayor of Fort Liard. She's a Northern "lifer" by her own description. "I haven't had moose since I left Liard," she says a little wistfully.
Best seat in the house
During that time, Nicole managed to get a diploma in travel and tourism management. A self-described "avid watcher" of parliamentary proceedings, when she heard that the legislative assembly was looking for a sergeant-at-arms, she immediately applied. "It was just that simple," she says.
She's blessed with one of the best seats in the house for watching the action.
Nicole gets an overstuffed leather chair, from which she can see every member.
"It's comfy," she says. "I don't have to participate in the debates in any way, I just have to occasionally watch that I don't roll my eyes."
During proceedings, she directs the Legislature's pages to MLAs who wish to pass notes on to their colleagues, or need their water glasses filled.
Her ease with the pages is noticeable, and probably attributed to her other big job, raising her two kids. Wirth, 8, and Brinn, 3, "are great kids, touch wood." Her husband Derek is an engineer for Air Tindi.
"Do you want to see it up close," Nicole asks. She walks into her office and raises the curtain on the mace's display case, gently lifting it out.
She points out some of the exquisite details on the symbol of authority; the stylized narwhal tusk, the sound of the stones encased in the shaft.
She tilts the mace forward, the better to get a look at the 1.3 carat diamond resting atop the crown.
The mace weighs 26 pounds, and Nicole has to carry it into and out of the chamber at the beginning and the end of every sitting. The sash that she wears in the performance of her duties is as much about providing padding as it is about "the pomp and circumstance of parliament."
Nicole takes the weight of the mace in stride. "I have a kid that's heavier than this," she says.
Still, "It's a heck of a way for a girl to get a diamond."
