by Marty Brown
Northern News Services

NNSL (DEC 02/96) - Way back in 1955, Rankin Inlet author Michael Kusugak -- who grew up in Repulse Bay -- saw his first Christmas trees. They were delivered by plane to the Bay store.

The store initially ordered them at the request of Mounties and missionaries who wanted to bring their holiday traditions to the North.

Living above the tree line, on the Arctic Circle, there's not a lot of trees, or "standing-ups," as the kids called them then.

They figured the Christmas trees where un-cut baseball bats. Kusugak wrote about Repulse's first Christmas trees in his children's book Baseball Bats for Christmas.

Now all the kids living above the tree line want Christmas trees, but they don't care if they are fake or live.

The Naujat Co-op in Repulse Bay carried live Christmas trees for years but after he got stuck with 12 he couldn't sell last year, manager Dave James got out of the business.

"I didn't ask why they didn't sell, I just never ordered any this year," said James.

Whether the undecorated trees got turned into baseball bats or not last year, he didn't know.

On the other hand, in Grise Fiord, the settlement closest to Santa's home, there's lots of Christmas trees for sale, live and fake.

"For the past couple of years we've sold 12 or 14 fresh-cut Christmas trees each season," said Doug Beiers, manager of the Grise Fiord Inuit Co-op.

Since there's about 30 houses in the hamlet, nearly half have live, decorated trees.

But how much does a live, needle-dropping tree cost up there by the North Pole?

Through the generosity of First Air and Kenn Borek Air Ltd., which donate the freight as a community service, the trees are sold for about $35 each Beiers said.

"We sell them at cost as a Christmas present to the community," he said.

The manager of the Holman Eskimo Co-op, however, has never ordered live trees.

"We can't even sell fake ones," George Fourneaux said. "There's only 430 people living here and I think everyone must have fake trees that are recycled every year."

It doesn't seem to matter if Christmas trees are fake or real, the tradition first brought north by the missionaries and the RCMP is here to stay.

In the words of an old Christmas song:

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree, you fill all hearts with gaiety.