Jason Unrau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 30/05) - Representatives from the Inuvialuit Community Corp, Inuvik Native Band, the local Metis association and the Town of Inuvik are expected to meet formally in the coming weeks to talk about how to spend Inuvik's $1.8 million share of $40 million in Northern Strategy dollars.

In dispersing the federal money to the communities, the territorial government allocated a 'base-funding' of $606,000 for each community with the remainder to be divided up on a per capita basis. Money is to be spent on community infrastructure and capacity building.

"What we've done so far is gotten together once with local leadership and set up a sub committee, two reps from each council, to work out a process for working together," said Mayor Peter Clarkson. "We'll look at what projects we want to allocate the money for."

While Clarkson wouldn't say what the town would like to see done with the money, he did note the positive aspect of prospective negotiations.

"Maybe this will set a precedent for when further funds come into the community, for example social impact dollars from the feds (for the pipeline). We'll already have a system in place," he said.

Inuvialuit Community Corp.'s corporate manager Delores Harley declined to comment on the matter and Inuvik Native Band chief Richard Nerysoo was out of town. All Metis fall under the Gwich'in Land Claim Agreement.