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Editorial Monday, March 30, 1998 Looking back fondly
Team NWT will look back fondly on the 1998 Arctic Winter Games not
only because it won a record 190 ulus but because it will have been the
last time many of the athletes competed as teammates.
With division comes Team Nunavut.
As Iqaluit's Guy Dudding, assistant chef de mission for the '98
Games notes, the creation of Nunavut will fracture the team spirit that has
evolved over the last 28 years for the among athletes throughout the
Northwest Territories. Division will also leave Nunavut athletes with some
serious issues in need of attention.
While Dudding said for the most part people are ecstatic with the
idea of Team Nunavut, there are a lot of unanswered questions and issues
left unaddressed.
The fact that "90 per cent of the coaches are from the West" makes
it pretty clear that Nunavut has its work cut out for it the area of sports
administration.
Funding will also be an issue.
The Arctic Winter Games is a lot more than winning ulus. It is a
potent force for bringing the circumpolar nations together. It is diplomacy
through sports.
The circumpolar people have a lot more in common than an
appreciation of high kick and share a lot more than a fanatic love of
dog-mushing.
They share the need to manage resource-based economies,
environmental concerns, the difficulties of administering to a few people
spread over enormous distances, the preservation of indigenous cultures
threatened by southern exposure and the integration of aboriginal peoples
into a fast-changing world.
It is important that Nunavut participate in the congregation of
circumpolar people. That is why the questions surrounding their pending
participation in the next Games deserve answers. Sport North will
have lots to talk over when they meet this May.
This past weekend, Cambridge Bay hosted the annual Nunavut mining
symposium.
The importance of mining to economic growth in the North can not be underestimated. But the impact on the land and the people who depend on the land and its renewable resources should not be underestimated, either.
Mining is a one-shot deal. The valued rocks are either there or they are
not. They can't be cultivated or re-planted. Once they are gone, that's it.
It's why they are called non-renewable resources.
And it is why, as the mining industry chief head home from the
Kitikmeot, both they and the people of Nunavut must remember who owns the
rocks.
The best way to answer critics is to challenge them to help solve
the problem.
That's what Wildlife Minister Stephen Kakfwi did when southern animal
rights activists made national headlines over a wolf kill by Saskatchewan
hunters hunting in the NWT. Once the irrational outburst over hunting
methods blew over, the discussion focused on wolf population numbers.
Admitting a proper data base did not exist, Kakfwi invited funding
help from interested parties. The World Wildlife Fund of Canada responded
with an offer of $40,000 in funding which Kakfwi welcomed.
Such alliances with reputable conservation groups help keeps facts
at the forefront while down playing emotions for the benefit of hunters and
the animal resources alike.
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