Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Jan 08/99) - Thanks to a $48,000-grant from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, the Inuvik community garden society has hired foreman Harley Matthew and five labourers to work until the end of the fiscal year renovating the old Grollier Hall arena.

The team is set to work in tandem with any volunteers who drop by, don hard-hats and do initial work to reshape the historic arena, where permafrost shifting has already taken place, into a functional greenhouse producing fruit by the summer of 2000.

"We accomplished quite a bit this morning," Matthew said Jan. 4 after work officially began.

"We got all the wire out. There used to be another wall up but we took the wire off."

Matthew, who has lived in Inuvik for the past four years, has 20 years of demolition experience, including his stints in Norman Wells and Churchill, Man.

He currently also works at Turning Point and at the Sydney Apartments as a superintendent, ensuring that his winter days are long and busy.

The next garden society meeting will be Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. at the centennial library meeting room.

Organizer Peter Clarkson says this is an important meeting because several discussion points still require decisions, including exactly what the group wants the arena to look like and what exactly to include in the renovation plans.

He urges people to come to the meeting with ideas and suggestions.

"We need to set a date for the AGM and start planning for it, especially if we want to bring some special resource people to the AGM," Clarkson says.

"We will review a funding application that will be submitted to the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development for further funding to buy material to finish the renovations."

Individual and family memberships for $20 will be available for those wanting to join the club. Further, the group will plan a work-bee day or weekend for society members who want to get out and help with the renovations.

Because the renovations are currently set to include giant skylights, Clarkson says one main need is windows.

"If you have any (windows) drop them off at the site or contact Harley or me and we can arrange to have them picked up," he says, before mentioning how large plastic pails are another society need.

The greenhouse is set to be 60 metres by 27 metres, sectioned off so about one-third is a market garden where organizers sell fresh produce to sustain the operation.

The remainder will be for residents to buy plots of land to plant their own fruits and vegetables. Elders will likely be given plots.

By the summer of 1999, organizers foresee volunteers and perhaps paid workers doing demolition work outside the structure and putting on protective covering.

Then the winter inducting the new millennium could be when workers complete inside renovations, leaving the spring for when people can plant the first seeds.