Features

For the Deh Cho, the year was both one of fulfilled goals and unrequited dreams.

Sitting in the near victory category are the Nahanni Butte gymnasium, the Mackenzie Bridge, the Nahanni National Park Reserve and the Wrigley RCMP detachment.

Nahanni Butte, the only community in the Deh Cho that doesn't have a gymnasium, has been promised that one will be constructed in the next year. This will be a boon for the community, allowing residents greater access to recreational activities and a larger space to gather indoors.

Also on the promised, but not constructed category, is the bridge across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence.

The bridge has been a long term goal for many residents in Fort Providence and farther afield. Some close calls in past years led to high hopes that were dashed. This time, however, it looks as if the project will actually be moving forward.

On Aug. 15 at the legislative assembly, Premier Joe Handley announced that the bridge project would proceed.

Also expected to move ahead soon is the expansion of the Nahanni National Park Reserve.

The importance of the project on both a local and national level was enough to warrant a visit from Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Aug. 8. Harper announced the expansion of the park, and work has begun to determine the actual boundaries. This process is sure to make headlines in the new year as it moves forward.

Also clinging on the edge of the victory list is the promise of a Wrigley RCMP detachment.

In May, the territorial government approved funding for Wrigley, Gameti and Sachs Harbour to each receive two RCMP officers. There's been no sign of the officers, yet.

Although these four big-ticket items constitute quite an accomplishment for the Deh Cho, there are still some areas where there's been little visible progress.

At the beginning of the year the Dehcho Process, the Dehcho Land Use Plan and the Mackenzie Gas Project each showed promise for being hot topics to keep your eyes on. This initial promise hasn't panned out.

What little news that has come out of these projects has told of negotiations and hearings that are underway and the fact that it may be awhile before any decisions are made. It's hard to say if more positive news will be forthcoming for any of these projects in the new year. They are still, however, things to be aware of.

We've come a long way, baby. Inuvik is officially celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and we can all pitch in to make it the best party possible.

From what I have gathered, every event here in town will be beefed up for the big year. It looks like the first of our annual gatherings is the Sunrise festival.

Twenty-one years of fireworks in the North. I can only imagine the excitement and hype that surrounded the event in its infancy. Now, more than two decades later, we still round up the family and brave the cold. For those of you who were born here and have seen the community grow, it must be a significant year indeed.

To those who are new to Inuvik, you might not be aware of it, but you're a fortunate person. As deputy mayor Chris Larocque said earlier in 2007; It's God's country.

Everyone knows that you put your best foot forward and dress up nice and fancy like for a big party. Well, this is our big gala.

Time to show up in top form and impress the masses. If we're going to make a big stink out of this and call attention to ourselves, then we should all be ready for the spotlight.

The streets are cleaner than ever before, and besides the fact that we didn't ask for the big blue dumpsters, we seem to be using them.

Social programs are still in need, but now the issue is on the front line. Treatment centres and safe houses will soon be a reality and we can thank each other for those advances.

If Inuvik is truly to remain the hub of the Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort, we need to keep pushing for more. Why don't we have a highway connecting us to Yellowknife yet? Aren't we worthy of some southern hospitality?

Our athletes are making sure that we stay in the highest rankings of the North as well. From pellet gun-toting cadets to 40-year-old hockey champions, we are among the most gifted this side of Great Slave Lake.

Has anyone been in the Midnight Sun Recreation Complex lately? That place is bangin'!

The kitchen is fully operational and has some pretty good burgers too, may I add. The hockey rink is always in use, as is the curling area.

Our conference centre and community hall is now set up with wireless internet, so if you're in the area and want to surf the web on your handheld, feel free.

The family centre pool and squash courts are just as popular as ever. Maybe it's the rush of the holiday season, or the fact that I haven't had a drink in two weeks, but this feels like the best possible way to start a new year.

I made a vow to live a healthier life and I can see that others around me have, too. Staying strong and happy is part of being a safe community.

By working together we can improve the lives of those around us. So get outside, volunteer with a local cause, or just spend some time with the people who live around you.

If this last month taught me anything, it's that 50-years-old is supposed to be a time of maturity and dignity. The people who made this community (no not the government, I mean the people) wanted the most for the North.

Now a lot of those people have moved on, this is our time to bring Inuvik higher than ever imagined.

I don't know about all of you, but I plan on making this my home for years to come.

These are the stories we will be telling others about for years to come.

Last summer two young Yellowknife men, aged 18 and 15, drowned in Great Slave Lake.

It was not a storm that swallowed them but bad judgment. Their boat had run out of gas on the North Arm and they decided to swim for it. They didn't make it to shore alive.

What made their deaths of interest to the public, aside from the obvious tragedy, was that one of the teenagers, 15-year-old Randy Leisk Jr., was supposed to be performing 25 hours of community service as directed by a judge. He had been sent to do that at the Sacred Fire healing Camp, located on an island in the North Arm.

In a story in Monday's News/North, the boy's father, Randy Leisk Sr. commented: "Either he went there or he went to jail. He should've gone to jail, I'm sorry to say. At least he would still be alive."

Leisk Sr. wants to know who was responsible for his son being in that boat when the decision was made to enter the water.

But here the answers get as murky as the waters of the North Arm.

It seems a careful read of the boy's probation order reveals the judge in the case did not actually order the youth to the camp. In fact, the judge said the boy could do his community service hours at the camp if a Department of Justice youth worker agreed. There is no indication a youth worker agreed yet the boy was at the camp to serve the hours, as court documents acknowledged.

The Sacred Fire Healing Camp was operated by a non-profit organization called Nats'eju Dahk'e Association, a charity established in 2003 "to help people with emotional problems," and was apparently dependent upon government funding.

Michael Luzny, 18, who also went in the water and died, was left to supervise the youths at the camp while the adults in charge of the camp went to the mainland, one reportedly to Fort Providence for a meeting and another to Diavik.

Did the camp operators break any rules? It seems not. While the Department of Justice gave $135,000 to wilderness camp operators, justice officials say there are no regulations as to how they must be run.

Former Coroner Percy Kinney looked at the situation in the summer. He concluded that because there was no court order in place, nor signed authorization from a justice department youth worker, an inquest was not mandatory.

Kinney said that did not mean he would not conduct an inquest but with his resignation last fall, it is certain he will not. Nor is it certain his successor to the office will decide an inquest is necessary.

Fortunately, the new Minister of Justice Jackson Lafferty is MLA for Behchoko and the other Tlicho communities. He knows the area, he knows the need for such camps.

The deaths of the two young men, actually one hardly an adult, does not diminish the need for alternatives to jail. Lafferty should have his department look at what happened, decide what should be done to prevent such a tragedy happening again, then put those measures in place.

Doing so will accomplish the goals of his department and give the grieving Leisk and Luzny families the answers they deserve.

I've been disappointed with the political animal the Arctic Winter Games have become since peewee hockey was dropped from its lineup two Games ago.

The reason given was that the Games had grown too big and expensive to host, so something had to go.

Hockey, because of the size of the teams, was an easy target.

And - even though it was the least competitive of the four brackets of hockey offered at the time - in this age of political correctness at any cost, female hockey wasn't going to be tampered with.

That left the group of kids who, arguably, best exemplified the true spirit of the Arctic Winter Games to be cut from the lineup.

Of course cost hasn't made much of a dent in the number of bureaucrats who get to make the trek to the site of the Games every two years.

In fact, in most areas, it's reached the point where attending the Games has become an expected perk for many who dwell in their government's ivory tower.

Forget the fact a good percentage of these decision makers contribute absolutely nothing to the development and organization of amateur sports in their communities.

Their departments sign the cheques that help fund the Games and, apparently, that's far more important than the volunteers who give so much of themselves to keep the various sporting programs alive and well in the North.

It's funny how signing a cheque to help fund the Games and showcase the talents of our young athletes isn't expected, but a free trip for the bureaucrats wanting to attend is, but I digress.

A number of the areas attending the 2008 Games in Yellowknife announced they couldn't find room on their charters for officials because they were filled with athletes, coaches, mission staff and, yup, bureaucrats.

This puts the expense on the host society to get the officials to the Games, either by donated seats or footing the bill directly.

Officials who volunteer for the event are given the option of providing their own transportation.

So, let's see: week away from work, pay and family to officiate a premier event that you don't get paid to attend while incurring personal costs of more than $1,000.

Gee, we can't understand why more officials don't jump at that.

Also staggering can be the number of officials who have to bow out of the event because they can't get the time away from work.

Their bosses see no need to reward an employee with a week away from work without pay for being so active in the community.

No need to recognize the accomplishments of those who have reached the pinnacle of officiating in the North, while putting in countless hours to make sports a healthy, safe and fair environment for kids to compete in - many of them the sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and grandchildren of the same bosses who say no.

That just doesn't compare with those who have their paycheques signed by territorial or provincial governments, right?

Is it any wonder it can be so difficult getting people to officiate in the North and rural areas?

They've truly become the Rodney Dangerfields of sports - they get no respect!

Errors appeared in last Friday's Yellowknifer. The NWT Canada Winter Games female hockey team won a game against Yukon in March 2007 ("Sports year in review," Dec. 28);Yellowknife became the capital of the Northwest Territories in 1967. Also, in a column in the Friday, Dec. 21 Yellowknifer ("Union members celebrate family time of year"), it should've read that Todd Parsons is president of the Union of Northern Workers; In addition, the Inuvik East Three Rebels defeated the Kingland Ford Cardinals for the Master's Division championship ("Chiefs lose the cup," Dec. 21). Yellowknifer apologizes for an embarrassment or confusion caused by the errors.