Yellowknife (Mar 24/03) - Seventeen white huskies helped two former Paulatuuq residents celebrate their nuptials in true Northern style on March 3.

Bruce Chadwick and Sheila Sauteur-Chadwick travelled all the way from Fort Smith to be married in the Mackenzie Delta, where they first met two years ago and eventually fell in love.

Chadwick was teaching at Angik school in Paulatuuq in March 2001 when he met Sauteur at the hamlet's tiny airport. She had just moved there with her two children, Jasmine and Jeremy, and Chadwick was helping to unload their belongings from a small aircraft.

"I think she brought in enough food to last for 10 years. And dropping off all that stuff to her apartment I said 'good luck,'" said Chadwick.

The romance didn't spark immediately. But after it did the two young teachers spent a lot of happy times together in Paulatuk and Inuvik over the next year before they eventually moved to Fort Smith.

"We had wonderful times in Inuvik last January and February.

"It turned out that we were both out for training and we got to spend several weeks here at the (Arctic) Chalet, so that's why we wanted to come back here to get married," said Sauteur.

The couple and their small wedding party, consisting of Sauteur's two children and Chadwick's sister and nephew, headed back to the Arctic Chalet in Inuvik on March 2 to prepare for their wedding celebrations.

The following day the weather was perfect for a Northern wedding. Temperatures ranged around the -30 C mark with the windchill, but the snow fell all day long.

There were no fancy wedding dresses, tuxedos or multi-layer wedding cakes. The bride and groom both wore jeans, were married by Justice of the Peace Tom Kirby, and later celebrated with a cookies n' cream cake bought from Northmart.

Kirby has married plenty of couples over the past 17 years as a justice of the peace in the NWT, but this wedding ritual was a first for him.

"I have never been out on one before with a dog team. It was a lot of fun," said Kirby.

He said many couples have come up with unique and interesting ways to celebrate their nuptials. "When people get married I say 'You can have it any which way you like.'

"The only thing I don't do is dropping out of the sky with a parachute or anything under water," Kirby laughed.