The bubble has burst on dreams of building a sports fieldhouse, at least for the short term.

City council wisely backed away from a proposal to seek public approval to borrow up to $13 million to add to $13 million already set aside to build the $26 million dollar facility.

Rather than go through the agony of putting forward a contentious referendum item - one that, if successful, would lead to an unacceptable eight per cent property tax increase - council is wiping the slate clean and starting over again.

It's something that previous councils didn't have the nerve to do when contemplating the construction of the Multiplex arena.

In both situations, council was under considerable pressure to give these facilities life.

In the case of the Multiplex, indoor ice rinks were a priority because the city was growing and one of the existing arenas was old and beyond repair.

Council bit the bullet and went ahead with the construction of the Multiplex despite continuously rising cost overruns that ballooned to over $2 million.

The city is now locked into a $140,000 a year payment plan to pay off phase one of the Multiplex, and will be until 2023.

Operating and staffing the city's two existing arenas costs almost $1.4 million a year.

The last council was also under pressure to build a fieldhouse because it had been tied to the Arctic Winter Games.

More pressure came from the 600-strong legion of indoor soccer enthusiasts who complained there was too much competition for gym space in existing school facilities.

Property taxes, meanwhile, have risen the last three years in a row and will at least for at least the next two years.

The city was fortunate enough to get help from Diavik Diamond Mines for the second pad of the Multiplex, otherwise it would have been a year late and cost the city almost $2 million more to build.

It would've been nice to have a fieldhouse in time for the Arctic Winter Games.

Nonetheless, it is reassuring council didn't jump off the cliff just to please the earnest faces pushing for it in council committee meetings.

The good news is that the city still has $13 million put aside to build a fieldhouse.

That's no small amount of change to put towards the day we are ready for it.

In the meantime, fieldhouse proponents will have to beat on sponsor doors for a couple of more years or come up with a scaled down plan.

Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Every so often, we all find ourselves in a situation where we may be too close to a situation to render a truly unbiased opinion.

We may be guilty of looking through rose-coloured glasses, have a personal stake in an outcome, or be wishing so hard for something to be successful that we only see what we want to.

In every case, the seeds of doubt start growing and you find yourself wondering if you're really getting a clear picture.

I found myself struggling with my own perception of the Rankin Inlet Recreational Hockey League earlier this year.

As many of you realize, I am a Level 4 official and spend as much time at arenas between November and April as I possibly can.

However, I am first and foremost a journalist, and one who's been known to express an opinion from time to time that doesn't exactly win me any popularity contests.

Yet, whether people agree with my opinions is not something I spend a great deal of time worrying about.

In fact, the idea behind most of what I write in this space is to get people to think for themselves and form their own opinions.

I have very little use for fence sitters, as I've always found them to be chronic complainers who rarely take a stance on anything.

You can find the page with the word abstain dog-eared in each and every one of their dictionaries.

As a journalist, I found myself worrying if I may have painted too glowing of a picture in a few of the news stories and editorials on Rankin hockey that bore my name during the past few months.

Hockey is one of the few things with the power to sneak a pair of rose-coloured glasses over my eyes if I'm not careful.

So, a shudder of excitement and apprehension went through me this past week when I saw Andy Nowicki in the crowd for the league's second playoff game.

The former Los Angeles Kings goaltending coach was weathered in Rankin on his way to Baker Lake to deliver a hockey clinic.

I made sure the opportunity presented itself later that evening, and again the next afternoon, to speak with Andy and get his impressions on the game.

As hopeful as I was, he still managed to blow me away when he said the game was comparable to the best adult recreational hockey he sees when travelling across the country each year.

He also spoke at great length about other benefits he saw in the community resulting from its strong sports program.

To say his words put my mind at ease would be the understatement of the year.

When your professional credibility can ride on every sentence you write, you tend to take the words quite seriously.

And, as important as words of encouragement are from those around you, sometimes you need the viewpoint of someone outside the box to validate your own perspective.

In this case it happened to be hockey, but the same rings true for many topics near and dear to your heart.

Personally, I'm just happy to report my rose-coloured glasses are still safely tucked away in my retirement drawer where I left them.

Editorial Comment
Dez Loreen
Inuvik Drum
Friday, February 9, 2007

Traditionally, people were taught new things by older members of their family, or other people close to them.

From what I gather from listening to elders, an older person would take you out in the bush and show you how to live off the land.

I have always believed that learning something first-hand is the best method and gives the best results.

I can only daydream of days past, the time before government settlements and canned food. Before the aid of libraries, Internet and encyclopedias.

The only way to learn new things was to follow your uncle Jimmy out to the lake and watch and try to learn as much as possible.

There are still people among us who wish to teach their young ones and other youth about the ways of the land and how the people of this region used to survive.

Sam Lennie is one of the people of whom I speak. He has spent a long time in this region and knows a lot about how things work.

He has also been at Sir Alexander Mackenzie school recently, teaching students about traditional tools and how they are used.

Last year I watched as he helped a large class assemble and carve their own harpoons. Sure, some of the kids in that room might not use the harpoon, but now they know how to build one.

Who knows, maybe they will spread that information to others in their age group.

Last week Lennie was back in the shop class making ice-fishing hooks for jiggling.

I didn't think so much effort went into shaping and carving the muskox horn to make the hook. A nail is driven into the horn and then it's sharpened and bent.

I wonder how much easier the work has gotten, with the help of power drills and saws. I'm sure it has helped considerably.

It doesn't even take an elder to pass on traditional knowledge. Just find someone who knows about cultural life and ask them questions.

Brighter days mean more time to spend outdoors. That could mean more people going on the land to their cabins or even just on a brief snowmobile ride.

I see the river between the younger and older generations shrinking and a bridge is being constructed. The older people have their half of the bridge planned out and have started to make their way across, with the lessons of life.

Now the challenge lies in the hands of the youth. We have to get off our asses and start building. I don't think we as youth should wait for the older people to come over, we should meet them halfway.

This should be where the younger generation smartens up. So hey junior, put down the brick and pick up your snares.

Editorial Comment
Roxanna Thompson
Deh Cho Drum
Friday, February 9, 2007

When people decide to live in the North they make a decision, conscious or unconscious, to give up a number of things that are more easily accessible in "the south."

This process is likely the same regardless of whether you have lived in the North your whole life or have just arrived.

At the top of the list are consumer goods. Sure, many people who have lived in the North for a while can tell stories about how things are much better than what they once were -- like when fresh vegetables were never their right colour when they arrived, if they arrived at all. But we still aren't on equal footing with large southern cities with their giant grocery stores and malls.

But people learn to adapt to life without some items or develop a variety of means to obtain their favourite novelty foods or products, such as resupply trips to the south, online shopping or obliging relatives.

There are, however, some things that residents of the North shouldn't have to compromise.

Access to public services such as citizenship tests and ceremonies, which are provided by the federal government, are two of the things that should be offered equally across the country.

Having potential citizens wait more than two years with no word about their application and then giving them under a month's notice to travel to a community located on the far side of the territory for the test and ceremony they need to become citizens seems like poor planning on some official's part.

Yet, this is exactly what happened to five residents of Fort Simpson who were asked to travel to Inuvik in August.

Although these five people are eager to become full Canadian citizens after years of living in Canada and the North, spending $2,500 or more for the trip, accommodations and food proved to be just too much for all of them. Each of the five had to decline and are now back in a state of limbo waiting for the next letter.

Something is wrong with this picture.

In a state of frustration, one of the people involved in the situation suggested that the citizenship officers themselves should be asked to take the citizenship test, which has a geography component, to help them understand the distance between communities in the North such as Fort Simpson and Inuvik.

According to a senior official with Citizenship and Immigration the problem is resources. The office only has two citizenship officers for the NWT, northern Alberta and Edmonton. Two people for such a vast area is, clearly, a problem.

Yet according to MP Dennis Bevington, the government officials with the power have no intentions of rectifying the system, which creates hassles such as suggesting people travel across a territory for service.

If the federal government is serious about immigration and helping to find skilled workers for places like the NWT, more resources must be devoted to the department.

Residents of the NWT may be far removed from the rest of Canada, and there might be fewer of us, but that doesn't make us second-class citizens who deserve reduced federal services.

An error appeared in an article in Wednesday's Yellowknifer (Stabbing victim uncooperative - RCMP, Feb. 7). It was the younger woman, 26, stabbed in Ndilo last week, who is still unconscious in hospital. The older woman, 31, has less serious injuries and is not being co-operative with RCMP. The ages were reversed in the article. Yellowknifer apologizes for any embarrassment or confusion caused by the error.