LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Early in the morning of Aug. 7, Allison Anderson locked her front door, put her little beagle in his kennel and settled down to sleep.

The quiet subdivision of Nogha Heights was rocked last week after two people broke into a homeowner's house. - April Hudson/NNSL photo

It was an unusual move for Anderson to lock her door. Nestled in the quiet subdivision of Nogha Heights, she and her family embraced a sense of security - keys could be left in the quad, windows could be left open at night and the front door did not always need to be locked.

All that changed on Aug. 7. Woken up by her beagle crying to be let out, Anderson got up only a couple hours after falling asleep.

"I woke up to him freaking out in his cage . I was half asleep, and I ran into the room to let him out, and he went for my other daughter's room instead of going for the door," she said.

Her daughter was not home. But still groggy from being woken up, Anderson's adrenaline spiked.

"I thought there was something wrong with her. I went running down the hall, and swung open the door - and when I did that, all I could see was this bigger kid jumping out of her window."

The youth joined a friend and took off on two quads without headlights, Anderson said.

Due to the early hour, it was too dark for Anderson to see their faces. All she knows for sure is one wore a red helmet.

"After my adrenaline went down, it was quite a scary experience because I was home alone," she said.

"If it wasn't for my dog waking me like that, I would probably never have known they were in my house."

The lingering question for her and husband Mike Byland, who found out about the home invasion after returning home from being on the land a few days later, is more dire: what if their daughter had been home?

Byland is determined to find out who the two were.

"When I got home, of course my blood started to boil," he said.

"What was their intention?"

In an effort to have something done sooner rather than later, Byland appeared before village council on Aug. 15 to advocate for enforcement of the village's youth curfew bylaw.

Once the youth responsible are caught, he also wants to see them have to go to court and face charges.

"Make a martyr out of them if (police) do find them, to let the other youth know this is not going to be tolerated any more," he said.

As for the idea that youth are bored and need programming, Byland does not buy that.

"Look where you live. There's fishing, hunting, they've got quads. Go quadding, go bike riding," he said.

"There's more than enough things here to do."

Following Byland's presentation to council, Coun. Mike Rowe said he wants to see the curfew bylaw enforced sooner rather than later.

"It's absolutely paramount we start enforcing the curfew we have right now," he said.

RCMP Const. Jonah Candy confirmed police have opened an investigation into the incident.

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