Canada's Western Arctic, Including the Dempster Highway is a 350-page, full colour compendium of the people, plants, animals and geography of the Western Arctic.

Mayor Peter Clarkson, one of the book's contributors, emceed the book launch.

"It was a lot of hard work and thousands and thousands of hours of donated time went into producing the book," Clarkson said. "Finally, it's out and I think all the members are very relieved."

Alan Fehr of the Western Arctic Handbook Committee told how the project began in 1997 with a core group of volunteers who wanted to produce a book that would be of interest to visitors and people who live here alike.

"We wanted to make sure that local people were getting information that they needed and wanted to be able to enjoy this area, to take advantage of the region and be proud of the place they live," Fehr said.

Fundraising for the book began in 1998. Fehr said the first draft was nearly complete by the end of 1999, early projections were somewhat ambitious.

"We thought we were going to have the launch on July first in the year 2000," he recalled.

The early release was not to be, however, and the next two years were spent revising and improving the text and gathering more images.

There are a total of 67 authors and 49 sections in the 352-page publication, but the raw material required some heavy editing.

Fehr told how many contributions came in at 20 to 30 pages that needed to be edited down to one or two pages.

"It was a huge management issue surrounding where material was coming from and over and above that, every section that was written, was reviewed by at least two or three people," Fehr said.

He said the information was too valuable to just edit out, so last spring, the committee started the companion publication, Natural History of the Western Arctic before the original book was complete. The book was referred to as a supplement to the original project and includes entire text of the flora and fauna of the region.

"It's a nice synthesis of all that information that was researched and gathered over the years," Fehr said. "We thought we had a responsibility and an obligation to get this out to you." The first printing of Canada's Western Arctic was 5,000 copies and sales have been brisk, but the group have lined up a continent-wide distribution list to increase sales.

Any profits will go back into updates on additional printings.

"We're hoping that with the sales of this book we'll be able to generate sufficient funds that we'll be able to continue research and update the book," Fehr said.

The book was dedicated to the people of the Western Arctic and free copies were distributed to all the elders and contributors, beginning with cover girl Emma Dick, who got the first copy.

"That's who we wanted to dedicate the book to, because that's who the book is about," Clarkson said. "It's about everything in the Western Arctic, but mostly about the people that live here."