by Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

FORT PROVIDENCE (Oct 17/97) - Mounties in Fort Providence responded to more than 250 calls from June through August this year, a recently released report says.

These calls included: three sexual assaults, 25 assaults, six cases of impaired driving and other offences.

"It should be noted that, once again, liquor was a factor in the vast majority of offences reported to our attachment," RCMP Const. Claire Kines said in his report to the hamlet of Fort Providence.

"August was by far the busiest month in the year, including as it does the Mackenzie Days celebrations. A quick overview of the statistics also shows that there has been a sharp increase in offences reported to police as compared to last year."

Kines went on to say that this trend will be studied in further detail once all the year-end statistics are available.

The Mounties also suggest that the hamlet and band join forces to build a fish-cleaning shack in the area of the winter crossing.

Over the summer, they said, the detachment noted a large amount of fish remains near the site.

A shack might go along way in cleaning up this problem, Kines said.