by Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 26/97) - Like so many southern inventions, southern-style election campaigns don't quite fit the North.

The cultures, wide-open spaces and a comparatively small population call for a different approach in the North.

In the South, candidates rely heavily on media to get their messages out. Media are bused, flown, fed and generally coddled by candidates hoping for favorable coverage.

In the territories, where candidates are already known by many voters, face-to-face meetings count for more than video-bites and photo-ops.

"You have to go and talk to your people," said Lorne Kusugak, campaign manager for Nunavut Liberal candidate Nancy Karetak Lindell.

"It's a lot more effective, especially when you know half the people. You have to go door-to-door and you have to talk to them about the issues."

Kusugak also noted the North is different from the South, so far as print media coverage is concerned.

"Kivalliq News and News/North are only out once a week," he said, noting a high percentage of voters in the East are unilingual Inuit, further reducing the impact print media can have compared with the southern dailies.

But meeting and greeting voters in the North is also a very expensive proposition.

Candidates in ridings in urban centres can walk their campaign trails while most Northern communities are accessible only by air.

Scheduled flights are not an efficient way of touring the communities, since they all begin or end in regional centres. The most effective way to meet voters, then, is chartering a plane.

"It runs in the range of a couple of thousand dollars a day," says Air Nunavut owner Jeff Mahoney. That includes pilot and fuel for a seven-seater Piper Navajo.

That's a bigger bill than most candidates can handle.

Independent Western Arctic candidate Wally Firth, from Fort McPherson, doesn't have the cash to visit all voters in their communities, but he has been able to talk to a lot on the way to or from home.

Firth regularly visits the Yellowknife airport, a stopping point for almost all Western Arctic scheduled flights.

In stark contrast to Firth's campaign is that of one of his opponents, the only incumbent running in the territories, Ethel Blondin-Andrew.

Campaign manager Lynda Sorenson said Blondin-Andrew will be spending roughly $100,000 to get her message out.