SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - After record attendance at this year's Folk on the Rocks, organizers have started work on enhancing security for the 2010 30th anniversary of the two-day summer festival.

"The security and safety of our patrons is paramount," said acting president Paul McKee.

"At the current time we rely on volunteers and partly on the public as well (for security)," he added.

Now, organizers will turn to RCMP, the city's municipal enforcement division and the liquor licensing control board to get ideas on how it might better its safety plans to combat the potential problems that come with increased attendance.

McKee was clear, however, that the new advice will serve to complement plans already in place.

"(We had) 1,500 extra people in the park with no significant incidents," he said, adding those numbers alone should show how hard the festival has worked on ensuring security and safety. More than 5,000 people attended this year's festival.

When asked, McKee also said the beer garden, which ran out of beverages this year due to high demand, "has not been a problem."

Indeed, McKee said he was only aware of one complaint, which was brought to his attention after Yellowknifer forwarded him a letter addressed to the paper.

The letter details an incident involving two festival volunteers and one aboriginal man. The letter was from 80-year-old Toronto resident Balfour Le Gresley, who was in town visiting his daughter's family.

Le Gresley said he was waiting for a bus back into Yellowknife from the festival site at about 8:30 p.m. on July 18 when he witnessed the incident.

According to him, two men wearing festival volunteer shirts appeared to confront an aboriginal man and, after a long verbal exchange, one knocked the aboriginal man to the ground "without any provocation as far as I could see."

The volunteer then "fell down heavily on top of (the aboriginal man), banging (the man's) head to the ground and after a short time on top of him the burly volunteer got up leaving the (man) on the ground at first seeming unable to move," he said.

RCMP arrived a short time after this to take the aboriginal man into custody, added Le Gresley.

"I myself felt that I had seen the (man) do nothing wrong or offensive to the volunteers," he said.

The next morning Le Gresley left to go back home to Toronto "but this incident has bothered me," he told Yellowknifer.

While McKee chose not to comment on this particular incident, he did say, despite training, it is hard to control the actions of every volunteer - the festival enlists more than 300.

"You can never really tell what a volunteer is going to do," said McKee, comparing the situation to security at a mall, or a hotel or apartment building.

In that case, he pointed out, it's always possible the doorman could unexpectedly go overboard when enforcing security, contrary to training.

Even so, organizers still plan to take advice from all three consulted organizations to make a "stronger and much better safety plan to enhance the security we already have," said McKee, adding the goal is always "to make sure we're doing our utmost."

RCMP did not return calls to comment on the incident described by Le Gresley. However, in an earlier interview RCMP Const. Kathy Law told Yellowknifer the weekend was pretty quiet from the police's perspective, with only one liquor-related offence occurring at the festival.