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The Yellowknife Catholic school board did something novel at its inaugural meeting earlier this month - it selected a non-Catholic as its chairperson.

Simon Taylor may not be a household name in this city, but that likely suits the board just fine. Catholic trustees would be well served by eschewing the controversy that has dogged their board for the past several years, and instead work diligently with a low profile to further the interests of their students.

This is something Yellowknife Catholic Schools did well until 2006 when it embarked on a religious crusade to rid itself of non-Catholic trustees, Amy Simpson-Hacala, in particular, who was re-elected to the board last month. Until then parents had mainly been concerned about school programs and facilities. Forty per cent of the student body weren't even Catholic.

With religion being held up a reason to be exclusionary at the board level, what happened next was predictable.

Student enrolment went from 1,556 in 2006 to 1,314 in 2010, and the district's share of tax support among Yellowknife ratepayers fell to 40 per cent from 44.5 per cent.

It's taken a while for the district to work its demons out. From the lengthy - and assuredly costly - court dispute with the territorial government in a doomed attempt to keep non-Catholics off the board to the inexplicable scenario earlier this year when the board tried to remove long-time employees Johnnie Bowden and Claudia Parker, the stubborn urge toward controversy has been hard to restrain.

With Taylor at the helm, the signal seems to be that those days may behind them, and providing quality education and programs - not religious dogma - is once again paramount.

Last week Yellowknife's longest-running folk group, The Gumboots, announced they have retired the band after 28 years.

Past and present members of the long-lived musical act showed generations of performers what is possible with a little imagination and lots of perseverance

The Gumboots released four albums between 1992 and 2009. Their set lists include centuries-old traditional tunes along with original songs that chronicle tragedies and triumphs from Northern history.

Every winter the musicians organized a large concert at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre (NACC), an ambitious tradition that endured for more than two decades. The band treated audiences to some of the biggest names in Canadian roots music, such as Juno-winning recording artists Murray McLauchlan, Valdy, and The Wailin' Jennies and Grammy-nominated band The Crash Test Dummies. Last year, Juno-winning Yellowknife singer/songwriter Leela Gilday was the band's final special guest.

Her dad, Bill Gilday, was the last performing founding member of The Gumboots, who recruited bandmates Ray Bethke and Steve Lacey to round out the group in recent years.

All three Gumboots are leaders in our community. Their contributions off stage are as laudable as their work with The Gumboots. Gilday inspired students as a teacher for decades and has composed scores for countless artistic projects. Bethke has led boards for NACC and Music NWT and participated in amateur theatre. Lacey is a founding member of another long-running band, The Ceilidh Friends, and also worked as a teacher and with NACC.

Their work ethic, commitment to community and love for the North sounded all the right notes for future performing artists.

For some reason negative news seems to travel faster than positive news.

On almost every subject, negative aspects come forward first, whether in daily life or on the evening newscast. This is true with education in the Deh Cho.

Often what people talk about is poor attendance levels, standardized achievements tests results that rank lower than in other places and low numbers of secondary school graduates. Positive developments seem to receive less attention.

That's why it's important to step back and also acknowledge the innovative and creative approaches that are being taken in schools across the region.

For schools that on any scale would be considered small, and in some cases very small, it's amazing what teachers and educators take the time and make the effort to examine.

These initiatives range from solar ovens in Trout Lake to Dene Zhatie immersion in Fort Providence.

These projects aren't always big and splashy and some may not look like much on the surface, but they are all ways in which educators are working to engage Deh Cho students.

Teachers in the Deh Cho are also very willing to allow other educators and specialists in different subjects to come into the schools and interact with students.

A case in point is the fiddle instructors from the Kole Crook Fiddle Association who were recently in Trout Lake giving lessons at the Charles Tetcho School.

A much larger example is the Berger Inquiry Project that resulted in an award for Brian Jaffray, a teacher consultant with the Dehcho Divisional Education Council. He is receiving a 2012 Governor General's History Award for Excellence.

Instead of learning about the Berger Inquiry from a textbook, that project allowed students from across the Deh Cho to get involved in first-hand research.

Students learned about photography, film making and videography while directly connecting with an aspect of the region's history and making material that will be featured on a website. This project was made possible because of Jaffray and the team he worked with, but also because teachers were willing to set aside time in their school's schedule to accommodate it.

Not every teacher and educator will receive an award like Jaffray, but it's important to recognize that work is ongoing in Deh Cho schools to give students the best and most innovative education possible.

The annual Great Northern Arts Festival Society's Christmas Craft and Gift sale was a perfect example of the wide variety of talent found in Inuvik and the surrounding region.

Each table was overflowing with handmade items, both traditional or more contemporary, over the weekend.

This event is a great way of showing townsfolk exactly what's available in the area. In some cases there were amazing gift ideas available literally from your next-door neighbour.

There's an amazing amount of talent and resourcefulness in Inuvik and there are many examples of that arising regularly, either by selling Indian food out of one's home or posting crafts for sale in the classifieds or on the Internet.

A number of stores in town also have great merchandise that could make for much-appreciated gifts.

Shopping locally isn't always the cheapest option, but it does keep those hard-earned dollars in the community, either by supporting a local business or a local artist. As an added bonus, you don't have to worry about the cost of shipping when you purchase here in the community.

Sure, it's not always easy getting exactly what you want locally, but you can always get an alternative, sometimes a product that has more of a Northern flair. Is ground beef too basic? Buy ground muskox instead. It won't have originated right here in town, but Sachs Harbour is still closer than a cattle ranch somewhere in Alberta.

Another benefit of browsing for Christmas presents locally is that it brings the community closer together. Wandering the aisles at the craft fair over the weekend, sometimes you got the feeling that you were at a giant family reunion or celebration, complete with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday as one vendor celebrated a special occasion.

Some people may have voiced complaints that prices at the craft fair were too high, but these are items that are going to last a lot longer than your standard pair of cheap winter boots or drafty, poorly-sewn mittens. Besides, it's easy to underestimate how many hours go into making handmade crafts. It's a lot of hard work.

We should be encouraging more people to look at buying things locally. The benefits extend many ways for the people here and surrounding Inuvik.

Fire Safety 101 strongly suggests that people do not enter a burning structure for any reason, despite the temptation to retrieve valuable possessions, even our beloved pets.

Case in point is our coverage of last week's house fire at Cassidy Point, in which the homeowner returned to her house to discover flames and smoke coming from an addition where the well and water tank are located.

Kristjana Dunn's two children were understandably upset about seeing the flames and expressed concern about the family's pets. Two dogs, Sasha and McKinley, and a cat, Sunny, were still inside the house. Brave, but risky. Wisely, Dunn went into the house on her hands and knees, below the level of smoke, and called the dogs, who crawled on their bellies through the doorway to safety. To be fair, Dunn didn't do a room-to-room search for the pets. Rather, she only went so far as the entryway and was able to call the dogs to her. She also abandoned a search for the cat, which was later found by firefighters, alive and hiding under the bed in the master bedroom.

The outcome in this instance was fortunate.

With the onset of cold weather and the rapid approach of the holiday season, now might be a good time to go over a home escape plan with your family, which includes the identification of a predetermined meeting spot outside of the house to call the fire department and wait for emergency responders.

It's also a good time to check your surroundings for fire hazards inadvertently created by a need for heat, like space heaters, for example.

And, if you're considering putting up and decorating a live Christmas tree, keep a fire extinguisher nearby and recognize that dry pine and spruce trees can burn rapidly and cause fire to spread quickly.

Some simple education and prevention now can protect your loved ones throughout the holiday season and beyond.

The hockey game held Nov. 18 involving locked out NHL hockey players and some of Yellowknife's more talented skaters seemed doubtful when first revealed to the media, Nov. 1.

It was unclear the next week whether there was enough time to book the Multiplex to host the game, or whether the lockout would come to a premature end and shatter the dream of having NHL players scoring highlight reel goals on Yellowknife ice.

In the end, out of shear will, the Aboriginal Sports Circle of the NWT, the City of Yellowknife, the game's sponsors, and dozens of hockey-mad volunteers came together and made sure the Multiplex was the place to be Nov. 18. Of course, the game wouldn't have been possible without organizer John Chabot and a collection of Ottawa Senators and other NHLers. We have them to thank as well.

Some $16,000 was raised from the event toward the Yk Minor Hockey Association and First Assist, a program to help at-risk aboriginal children in small communities learn the value of education.

The sold-out crowd was treated to the sight of Northern favourite Jordin Tootoo of the Detroit Red Wings scoring a hat trick while Yellowknife players such as Brad Mueller and James Williams got to race down the ice with the pros.

We had our city's youngest hockey players get some on-ice pointers from Ottawa's Chris Neil and Marc Methot, and one lucky fan who threaded the needle with his shot to win a brand new Buick Verano.

All in all, it was a great night for Yellowknife, and proof that Northerners can collaborate with the pros to make things happen. All they need to do is put their heads - and hockey sticks - together.

While I can't say it's a majority, having never conducted a poll on the subject, I can say a growing number of Kivalliq teachers are voicing displeasure over the Government of Nunavut's (GN) decision to block YouTube and other social-media sites from our schools.

The GN's concern seems to be how much bandwidth the sites demand.

If that's it in a nutshell (fat chance), one can't help but wonder what could possibly be a more important use of bandwidth than for the education of our youth?

Let's be honest here.

There's no doubt some kids were on YouTube, Facebook, etc., during school hours, and nothing they did on those sites remotely resembled anything of educational value.

That said, many other kids used those social-media sites for the right reasons and were exposed to a wealth of news and topical, relevant information.

In short, they were keeping up with the world in the here and now, and that's one of the most valuable aspects of the Internet, in general, when it comes to students in remote locations.

I also agree with the educators who are wondering why the Nunavut Teacher's Association isn't demanding a better explanation from the GN, if not outright fighting to have the move reversed on the grounds it's holding back the delivery of a modern education.

The decision to block the sites also diminishes an educator's ability to take full advantage of the digital technology that exists today.

If holding back eager young minds from the best today's technology has to offer in terms of educational resources is part of what the GN is selling as a made-in-Nunavut curriculum, then I'm not buying and neither should our district education authorities or parents.

As one teacher so aptly asked, "When are people going to recognize the incredible teaching opportunities inherent in the use of iPhones, iPods, iPads and their various incarnations?"

While I don't believe the decision, in and of itself, is reason for students and parents to abandon traditional education through schooling in favour of home learning via the Internet, they should let the GN know, in no uncertain terms, this decision is archaic, if not downright draconian, in nature.

It is a move towards retarding the modern delivery of education, and a step backwards in any effort to win the people's hearts and minds concerning the new curriculum.

In fact, Nunavut should be among the nation's leaders in adapting and promoting the use of technology and social-media sites in improving our children's education.

There is also the message of distrust this sends to our youth, unless, of course, you're buying the reason of bandwidth and bandwidth alone being the reason behind the GN's decision.

This reeks of the GN convincing itself hundreds of kids were spending their days watching inappropriate videos instead of using the Internet for educational purposes.

We're almost half a century past Timothy Leary uttering his infamous line in 1967, but, it appears, the GN fears the Internet is the new way for our youth to "tune in, turn on and drop out."

It's time to grab an abacus and add up just how many ways that line of thinking simply doesn't make sense.

A woman with a black eye. An under-dressed child crying in the corner when he should be at school. A man passed out on the couch.

These are scenes that have played out many times in NWT communities. Alcohol is commonly behind them.

Statistics underscore a cause for concern. Forty-three per cent of NWT residents admit to drinking excessively (five drinks or more on a single occasion) compared to 12.1 per cent nationally. Among 15-to-24-year-olds in the territory, that number climbs to a whopping 64 per cent.

Last week marked National Addictions Awareness Week. There were sober walks, traditional ceremonies, community feasts and numerous other events.

News/North asked some community leaders for their thoughts on addictions issues. Wrigley Chief Tim Lennie expressed his opposition to having a treatment centre established in Yellowknife, an idea that seems to have political momentum behind it.

Lennie is familiar with addictions. Not only does he see the fallout from others' struggles in Wrigley, he resigned from the chief's office in the past, making a public statement that he had lost control to his own inner demons at the time.

He wants the GNWT to fund rehabilitation efforts closer to home. This is a stand sure to resonate with people in other communities that want drug and alcohol programming.

In Norman Wells the liquor store now sells unrestricted quantities of alcohol after last year's plebiscite in which 53 per cent of residents voted in favour of eliminating limitations on booze sales.

Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya, who acknowledged bootlegging was a plague in the past, said the increased alcohol flowing from the liquor store now is alarming. He is calling on the community to reconsider the lifting of restrictions, adding that other Sahtu communities are affected as more alcohol is shipped their way. Yakeleya is warning that the money associated with the coming winter oil and gas drilling season could create volatile conditions.

Norman Wells Mayor Harold McGregor, on the other hand, didn't want to speak to News/North about the issue. His views would have been helpful.

Whether banning alcohol is more effective than opening the taps from a policing perspective is difficult to assess. Crime statistics provided by the RCMP have been scant, other than a 17 per cent decline in crime in Norman Wells over the past year, despite the lifting of alcohol restrictions. That figure encompasses all crimes, but alcohol-related incidents account for a substantial portion. So that decrease is baffling but suggests open access doesn't affect addiction as much as other factors.

Southeast of Norman Wells, Behchoko has had a prohibition on liquor since June 15, 2009. That makes Behchoko a dry community - in name only.

"Even though there is a liquor ban, there are still lots of people drinking in the community," said one woman, who didn't want to be identified.

Despite the extreme approaches - one community will sell as much alcohol as you can afford to buy while the other community has a ban on all alcoholic beverages - alcohol-fuelled social problems persist.

Drinking liquor to excess is a problem people in our communities have struggled to overcome for generations. It is not going away anytime soon. But we can't stop fighting, and as part of that battle, we must keep talking openly about what's working and what's not, as we try to lead others to sobriety.

With the Arctic Fishery Alliance looking for a bigger share of Nunavut's turbot fish quota, and strict rules on how to distribute that quota across the territory, we really just need a bigger pie.

While Nunavut has its full share of Division 0A, basically from just below Qikiqtarjuaq to the northern tip of Baffin island, it has to split the turbot quota of Division 0B - from 0A down to just past the southern tip of Baffin - with the Atlantic provinces to the south.

In 2011, Nunavut was allowed to fish 2,850 metric tonnes out of Canada's total quota of 7,000 for Division 0B, the region with a longer and cheaper operating season than the northern 0A region.

Nunavut deserves 100 per cent of that quota. Whether it can fully harvest that at this point should not be a factor. By owning the quota, the territory could sell unused portions to the southern provinces on a year-by-year basis. It's ridiculous the Atlantic provinces reap the benefits of Nunavut's waters more than the territory itself.

Most of the federal government's Northern economy efforts revolve around mineral resource development. While the financial benefits of mining are nothing to be scoffed at, the fact is it's a boom-bust industry centred around non-renewable resources. Fish are a renewable resource ripe for the picking and require little infrastructure. The fisheries industry only needs small craft harbours instead of roads, railroads and massive excavations. Fisheries professionals can be trained in Nunavut, and in many cases, on the job. They don't require degrees in geology and engineering.

Rather than fostering this industry, the federal government has hamstrung it by sharing our quota with the provinces. With less quota to harvest, fisheries cannot get what they need to expand.

At the federal level, the 0B quota must be transferred to Nunavut and investment should be made in small craft harbours.

At the territorial level, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board must relax its vague Inuit-ownership rules. Suggesting the Arctic Fishery Alliance isn't sufficiently under Inuit control flies in the face of the organization's all-Inuit board asserting they do, in fact, have a say in every policy and business decision. Even if there was an inordinate amount of non-Inuit control, the NWMB should jump at the chance to invest in a successful Nunavut fishery. Create the jobs now for Inuit to fill as they are trained and as the industry grows.

The Arctic Fishery Alliance wants not only to pull in more fish, but to take advantage of tie-in business opportunities, especially in Qikiqtarjuaq, a hamlet it sees potential for as a service centre for the High Arctic turbot fishery.

The fish are there, the opportunity is there. Now the feds have to give Nunavut the quota that it should have had since division.

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