Fort Resolution (Apr 21/03) - The buzz may return to the old sawmill in Fort Resolution.

"For sure it's a good thing," said chief Robert Sayine in Fort Resolution. "I've been doing work on it myself. Sawmilling is probably the only resource we have here in Fort Resolution."

It is something that MLA Steven Nitah mentioned he is interested in supporting in a recent interview.

"The community had a sawmill since the 1900s," Nitah said. "So they know the business."

"I told him that three years ago," Sayine said with a laugh, when Nitah's comments are mentioned to him. "It's almost the end of his term and now he's remembering?"

In fairness, the sawmill has been an ongoing issue for years. It has a long and troubled history with the NWT Development Corporation as well as business partners who wanted to come in, create a few short term jobs, make some money, and get out.

It has re-opened and closed for different reasons over the years.

When the NWT Development corporation took control in the 1980's, Sayine recalled, the sawmill still belonged to the community.

But hard times hit in the 1980's and the mill started losing money. So, eventually the chief of the day turned all assets over to the Development Corporation to keep the sawmill going around 1996.

"It might not have been the best mill in the world," said Sayine, "but at least we had something."

The mill kept losing money and the development corporation shut the mill down and sold all the equipment around 1999.

"That really did belong to the community. So we got screwed," said Sayine.

Now Sayine says while it's interesting Nitah is talking about the sawmill, and perhaps building another government partnership, the best route is probably for the community to take control.

"The best approach either the community does it on its own or find a sawmill that wants to partner with us," said Sayine.

"We have good timber in our area."