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This year's record fire season has proven people must be prepared to protect their own properties when wildfires come close.

With 243 fires burning across the NWT, homes, cabins and lodges are under threat of burning anywhere below the treeline.

David and Kristen Olesen's home at the mouth of the Hoarfrost River on the east arm of Great Slave Lake was destroyed July 4.

While Olesen was given assurances crews would fight the fire near his home, he stopped short of laying blame, saying the fire caught everyone by surprise.

At the same time, members of the Gibeault family were left largely on their own battling a blaze threatening their cabin 80 km east of Yellowknife.

Gibeault decried the lack of help he and others received from the GNWT. He said he had to clear brush and spray water when flames came within metres of his property while GNWT firefighters focused on other areas nearby.

For both the Olesens and Gibeaults, it's clear they and all property owners living off the grid must be prepared to protect their properties on their own during fire season.

When resources are stretched thin under extreme conditions, decisions are made on the fly and communication can become confused. Mistakes can happen. Sometimes all the right decisions don't prevent tragedy. In the end, people can't rely on policy makers and bureaucrats because they have no control over them.

Well before this fire season, the GNWT had been vocal about getting property owners to be vigilant and follow Firesmart procedures, like clearing brush away from buildings, keeping woodpiles from the house, having a water supply, planning for the worst etc.

This fall, the GNWT should do a postmortem on how the season was handled, identifying gaps in information, re-examining priorities, strengthening communications not only with the public in general but those at immediate risk in particular.

Considering the effort put in and the successful protection of people and property across the territory, except the sad losses on the Hoarfrost River, there's no reason to doubt the dedication and resourcefulness of NWT firefighters.

Ensuring they have all the people and equipment they need should guide future policy and budget decisions.

If there was any doubt as to the ongoing needs of the less fortunate in the city, it was amply demonstrated by Renee Sanderson through her 2nd annual Christmas-in-July food giveaway.

Sanderson organized and distributed supply bags of food, toiletries and water to homeless men and women in front of the post office last week.

With the help of two volunteers and cash donations, she gave out 178 bags. Sanderson said she surpassed last year's cash donations and is planning on expanding next year, with clothing and backpacks if she can get enough donations.

The homeless and needy of the city need something like this now THAT there are fewer options for them to get bare necessities.

The Yk Food Bank shuts down from June to September. The now closed Day Shelter was one of the few places where people could get a snack during the day. Despite the summer weather, the situation looks bleak as the city and territorial government continues to drag their heels over a new location.

Sanderson's food effort and the response on the street are a healthy reminder the homeless need more than occasional donations. They need a guaranteed safety net.

I find that every so often there seems to be a theme to the stories I hear throughout the run of a week. It's odd, but it's as if clusters of things pertaining to a particular subject present themselves to me. Either that or I just relate them all in my mind and think of them that way.

This past week and a half the theme I've been hearing and thinking a lot about happens to be drowning.

I'm speaking in reference to the tragic loss of a young man in Whale Cove who drowned while swimming with a bunch of his friends. I know from speaking to people in the community that it's a loss that hits everyone, especially when the victim is so young.

I also heard the story of Louis Pilakapsi - the man heavily involved in politics and his community who drowned in 2000 in Hudson Bay just outside of Arviat with his ship crew. Even hearing that story 14 years later it's clear what a loss it was, and the person telling me the story said it was made even worse that all of the lives were lost and searchers never recovered them.

I know that loss, personally.

Coming from the East Coast and from an extended family of fishermen, drowning is something you just deal with growing up as one of those things that happens. You become desensitized to stories of drowning over time - at least until it hits someone in your family, or someone who you know well in your community, and then believe me, the senses come back.

A year-and-a-half ago, five young fishermen were lost when their boat, the Miss Ally, capsized during a February storm just after Valentine's Day. All of the men lost were young, had young families and, like most in southwest Nova Scotia, were related somehow to almost everyone.

One of the fishermen was my cousin, Billy Jack, and, although we were never really close, it still hit hard that he was gone, leaving behind young children. I remember when the call went out that the boat was in distress, another cousin's husband was one of the first to try and help.

The fishermen in the community took to the choppy seas themselves to try and rescue the young men, but there was nothing they could do.

For days I watched and listened around the community as girlfriends, wives and soon-to-be widows kept praying, left their outside lights on at night as a symbol of hope, and banded together for support until the sad day that the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP called off the search.

I'm sure in a coastal region like the Kivalliq there are many sad stories of lives lost and taken by the bay, lakes, rivers, while fishing or swimming, or just enjoying the water.

For all of those who have been touched by this, I know it's heart-wrenching to hear of it happening over and over again.

Unfortunately, so long as we venture out on the water to make a living, or harvest what nature has to offer, there will always be the chance that nature takes something back.

Last week, Effie Bella Snowshoe made the brave decision to speak publicly about the death of her son Edward, who had taken his own life after being held in a segregated cell for 162 days.

Effie reminded us all that Edward was a person with a family who cared about him.

The justice system did not seem to see him that way. To it, he was another inmate to be discarded - forgotten in a cell for the better part of six months.

The results of the inquiry into Edward's death in an Edmonton penitentiary in 2010, which was released late last month, should be shocking. Unfortunately, the way in which Edward was treated is part of an ongoing trend within the Canadian justice system. That system is supposed to punish and rehabilitate offenders. Instead, more and more stories are emerging about prisoners being mistreated while in custody, so much so that Canada was found to be in breach of its obligations under the Convention Against Torture in 2012 because of its failure to adequately deal with prisoners with mental illness.

Despite clear signs of mental distress, including three previous suicide attempts, Edward was put in an isolated cell where the only means guards had to observe his movements was through a small slot.

In his report, Justice James Wheatley found that the guards at the Edmonton institution where he died were unaware of his history of self-harm, and that no real effort had been made to assess his mental health since he had arrived at the prison 28 days before his death.

Prior to arriving in Alberta, Edward had been held at Stony Mountain Institution in Manitoba. While there, he had attempted to fashion a weapon out of a juice box. As punishment, he was sent to segregated cells.

During his transfer, Edward's case was again mishandled and his segregation sentence reset. Instead of being near the end of his time in isolation, Edward would have been left with no idea when he would be able to leave the tiny room he was being held in.

Edward was 21 years old when he was sentenced to serve more than five years in jail for shooting a cab driver during a botched robbery attempt in Inuvik. He was 24 years old when he died. He deserved a chance at restitution, to serve his time and get on with his life.

If Edward had been treated in a humane way, he would have been treated for depression. He would have seen a counsellor. His request to rejoin the general population would not have been misplaced.

Instead, the community of Fort McPherson lost a son and a brother.

Edward Snowshoe deserved to be punished for the crime for which he was convicted, but he did not have to die.

The late Bern Will Brown had true pioneer spirit. Perhaps more importantly, he balanced that with a respect for traditional ways of life in the North.

When he arrived in Colville Lake from the south more than 50 years ago, he was an Oblate priest and constructed Our Lady of the Snows Church - the first permanent structure in the community.

Over the years, Brown learned to speak Slavey and lived alongside the people. As the community changed, he changed with it, eventually leaving the priesthood in the 1970s to marry a Northern girl, Margaret.

He ran a dog team, and later piloted a bush plane. He was both deeply religious and respected the belief system that the people of the Sahtu had adhered to before European contact.

For these and so many other reasons, Brown set a high standard for other southern ex-pats seeking to make a home for themselves in the North.

His death is a major loss for the North. They just don't seem make them like Bern Will Brown anymore.

Extreme measures needed so that youth say no to smokes
Nunavut News/North - Monday, July 21, 2014

Sometimes it takes fire to fight fire, which is why the concept of invigorating youth to prevent addiction among their peers makes a lot of sense.

Just as fire is used to create a fire break, the Department of Health's Tobacco Youth Action Team's message describing how addiction to nicotine is destroying Nunavut's youth will hopefully do the same to curb the prevalence of smoking in the territory.

It's that serious because Nunavut's anti-smoking advocates report that 59 per cent of residents age 12 years and older use tobacco products. Not only is that nearly half of the territory's population, the age group indicated in the statistics is particularly troubling.

Tobacco Youth Action Team members are generally students in Grade 8 or Grade 9, and smokers are welcome to join the team because they are part of the target audience and are in an ideal position to influence younger people who are just starting to smoke. For many people, hearing about people who start to smoke cigarettes even before reaching their teenage years is astounding. However, the Department of Health says that is the reality in Nunavut.

As if the coughing and hacking that accompanies the first inhalation of tobacco smoke is not enough of a deterrent, there is the high cost of a cigarettes, in excess of $20 per pack, to consider.

"We need to stop this tobacco insanity," was how school teacher Scott McFadden summed it up.

We couldn't agree more.

The teams of youth were tasked with creating a message that will get through to their friends and younger people in the community telling them that smoking is not cool. His students at Paatsaali School in Sanikiluaq chose to bring the message home by showing a jar filled with tar that included a list of the dangerous and toxic ingredients in cigarettes. They also had a set of lungs from a pig to show how much damage smoking can do to a person's vital organs.

The organizers behind the anti-tobacco campaign recognize that it is difficult to convince a person who smokes regularly to quit. They take the tact that informing smokers about the dangers of smoking will get them thinking the next time they are offered a cigarette. The desired result is that people will choose to quit on their own, based on the information they have been given.

If a person considers that the principal at the school in Sanikiluaq estimates 75 per cent of his students smoke, and that the Department of Health's number are far above the national average, it becomes obvious that extreme actions are needed to get the message across.

Action taken by Tobacco Youth Action Teams in Sanikiluaq, Kugluktuk, Repulse Bay, Gjoa Haven and Iqaluit are good. But more efforts are required to deliver a message that cigarettes rob youth of their health and encourage them not to start smoking in the first place.

From the deep, clear lakes stuffed full of Arctic grayling, lake trout and trophy-sized Northern pike, to the magnificence of the dancing green lights of the aurora - those who live in Yellowknife intimately know what makes it so attractive.

The challenge is getting the word out to everybody else.

The proposed City of Yellowknife hotel room tax just may be the ticket to sharing the uniqueness the city has to offer with the rest of the word.

The proposed tax of up to three per cent would be added to room bills at the city's hotels and motels. The money collected would then be earmarked for marketing Yellowknife as a tourist and convention destination.

The city's federally-funded 2014 Tourism Development Strategy makes the case for the tax. Visitors spent $38 million on accommodations in 2013. The tax revenue, adding only a few dollars to each room bill, would total $1.14 million.

There's no reason Yellowknife cannot become more of an international tourism destination. The 2014 aurora viewing season counted 15,000 visitors, mostly from Japan, with a growing number from South Korea and China.

A marketing strategy that promotes the abundance of culture and rugged nature of Yellowknife just needs funding to extend its reach.

The hotel tax is partially aimed at starting a bureau to target industry, trade and professional groups which seek out interesting places to hold conventions. While Yellowknife has already seen its share of doctors, lawyers and scientists, this is an area that deserves some focused attention. A marketing bureau, which would be funded by the hotel tax, could do just that.

But this is not the be-all, end-all.

Convention-goers need to be greeted with packages that offer them plenty to do with their down-time.

And for this, the city doesn't have to scramble - just organize.

There is plenty of activities - whether it be dog sledding, aurora watching or taking part in Dene traditional activities - to delight all tourists.

The abundance of lakes and the world-class fishing can be a key component in any strategy. Although fishing tourism has seen a decline over the last five years, as Yellowknifer reported last week, NWT Tourism has begun a push to revive it.

Fourteen-year-old Donny Boake, who recently secured a place on the Canadian Youth National Flyfishing Team and finished sixth out of 60 at the North American Loch Style Fly Fishing Championships last month is a boon to the city. His success is Yellowknife's success, and there now exists the potential for him to become the Yellowknife's poster-boy of fishing.

The tax is not a new concept to the territory. In 2011, the GNWT attempted to implement a similar tax that would have allowed NWT communities to decide for themselves whether they wanted to implement it. It died after some concern that the revenue generated for marketing Yellowknife would eclipse marketing revenue generated by other communities and therefore leave Yellowknife alone in the spotlight of potential NWT destinations.

But in many cases, what is good for Yellowknife is good for the territory. Although the administration of the levied tax has yet to be determined, if NWT Tourism were to get on board, as a territory-wide umbrella association, it could lead marketing initiatives for Yellowknife and any other community that may want to be involved.

The bottom line is this tax can help promote what we already have and increase the significant contribution the industry makes to the city's and territorial economy - $106.7 million in 2013.

It's more an investment in tourism than a tax.

Many adults are probably wondering how they could claim to be bored in the first place. Imagine having two months with no responsibilities, no timelines, no homework. Most adults can remember just how great summer breaks were, but forget the feeling of sitting around wondering what to do next that starts to creep in after the first week or two.

That is where organizations and communities in the Deh Cho excel. There is almost an endless string of activities for youth of different ages to participate in throughout the summer.

The longest lasting in three communities are the swimming pools. Pool staff employed by Fort Liard, Fort Providence and Fort Simpson have created jam-packed schedules to fill summer mornings, afternoons and early evenings with public swims, family swims and swimming lessons.

The pools are clearly appreciated by youth in the respective communities. Some days it's hard to move in the pools without bumping into someone because so many children have come out to swim.

Then there are the summer programs. The Open Doors Society in Fort Simpson recently concluded two weeks of its annual summer program that provided a variety of activities in both the mornings and afternoons.

This week in the village a popular science camp is underway. This not only keeps the young participants occupied, it allows them to learn and explore new concepts.

In Trout Lake youth have the opportunity this week to participate in a variety of sports and games at a multi-sport camp. That camp will be making its way to Fort Simpson the following week and will be in Fort Liard in late August.

Other camps and events are also underway or set for later in the summer in many Deh Cho communities. All of these opportunities organized by communities, First Nations and local organizations ensure Deh Cho youth have safe and constructive ways to spend their summer holidays.

School may be out, but there is no reason that youth can't still be learning, exploring new experiences and burning off excess energy and summer slushies through sports and games. The alternative is an endless chorus of "I'm bored" and "there's nothing to do."

Summer in the Deh Cho is nothing if not packed with opportunities for youth.

When you take a look at the number of community athletes who are travelling to the North American Indigenous Games, you will see a list of 23 names, not including coaches, trainers and two youth ambassadors.

There are not very many sports on tap at the games that doesn't have at least one Inuvik athlete competing.

For a town with a population of 3,500 people or so, that's absolutely amazing.

The list doesn't include some of Inuvik's finest. Chris Church, for instance, is a multi-talented athlete who tied the Canadian record in the one-foot high kick. Church is also a highly-talented basketball player. He's not attending the indigenous games, although he did last year. Other Inuvik athletes are doubtless waiting to participate in the Traditional Circumpolar Northern Games during the Inuit Circumpolar Council general assembly, which happens at roughly the same time.

Then there are some highly competitive adult athletes who aren't overshadowed by their younger counterparts.

The NWT Women's Territorial Softball Championships were hosted by Inuvik for the second straight year last weekend.

The Benchwarmers, of course, were defending their status as two-time champions, although they were in tough against a field of five other teams, including the Amirco Angels, a team on the rise.

The Benchwarmers won their third title after a struggle with the Angels and the NWT Power Corporation team, which had defeated them soundly in the round robin portion of the tournament.

Two members, Stacey Christie and Shandie Tanner, took home trophies for being the top players at their positions as well.

The question of why Inuvik is such a powerhouse when it comes to athletics is an interesting one to ponder.

While the population is small by some standards, the community is still the third largest in the NWT, giving it an automatic advantage over many of its counterparts. Still, the level of athletic dominance and skill can't be explained that easily. A very high proportion of Inuvikmiut, it seems, are simply athletic. In the wealth of activities the town affords, that athleticism has the chance to be developed properly, nurtured and supported, whatever age you might be.

That's a good thing, and it reflects well on the town.

Now, let's play ball!

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