Yellowknife (Mar 24/03) - The first time Jerry Arey picked up a pistol it fired accidentally.

He was lucky; nobody was injured. His mistake was a common one. As he picked up the handgun he automatically put his index finger inside the trigger guard.

"It's an experience I'll never forget," says Arey.

Now 53, Arey is a member of the Canadian Rangers, the sergeant of the Aklavik Ranger Patrol and one of his duties is instructing teenagers in the safe handling of firearms.

"The first thing I teach them is to not put their trigger finger on the trigger until they are ready to shoot. That's my lesson to the kids," says Arey.

Arey works with 21 Junior Rangers in Aklavik. The program has a mandate to teach traditional skills, bush skills, and life skills.

"I didn't have this luxury when I was young," says Arey who was taken out of school at age 12 to live on the land with his grandfather. There he learned first-hand how to trap, hunt, and whale.

Youth today don't have as many opportunities to live on the land as Arey did but he hopes that through the Junior Canadian Ranger Program (JCR) he can make a difference.

"Before we lose our culture we're trying to bring it back," says Arey. The program relies on a complementary working relationship of Rangers, elders, and Canadian Forces personnel. The Rangers teach bush skills, the elders teach traditional skills, and the Forces personnel teach firearms safety and other technical skills.

The Aklavik Junior Ranger Patrol just got their program up and running last fall and Arey is busy training the youth to safely shoot .177 calibre Daisy Air Rifles.

"It doesn't matter what the calibre is," says Arey, "They like it - - especially the girls. They've got competition on the mind."

Arey was in Yellowknife in early March with one of his Junior Rangers for the Regional JCR Air Rifle Competition.

"The youth here are already winners," says Warrant Officer George Laidlaw, the officer in charge of the competition. Twenty-four youth out of the 1,000 Junior Rangers in the North qualified to shoot at Canadian Ranger Air Rifle Competition held recently in Yellowknife. The youth were selected from the 30 communities spread across the Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, Northern BC and Northern Alberta.

"The main focus was to promote safe firearms handling with the youth in the North, and we decided that the best avenue to achieve this goal was through competition," says Laidlaw.

During training and competition the youth are required to follow strict procedures for loading, firing, and proving the rifles are safe. They are taught to assume that every firearm they pick up is loaded. It is drilled into them that they must at all times control the direction that the muzzle is pointing.

The youth are required to wear protective glasses and earmuffs. Though they are only firing pellet rifles they follow all of the same precautions that one would take when using a large calibre rifle. This way the routine becomes a good habit early on in life.

The regional competition consisted of grouping shots, five-second timed exposures, falling plates, and 10 second run-down engagements.

Moses Ippak Sr.of Sanikiluaq proved to himself that years of practice and lots of hunting pays off in the end. This 16-year-old was the top shot with a score of 110 out of 135.

Sarah Kudluarok, 15, also of Sanikiluaq, placed second with a score of 99. Third was awarded to JD Nukiguak of Panniqtuuq, with a score of 96.

- Stephen Badhwar is a writer and a Ranger living in Atlin, B.C.