Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Mar 26/99) - As the peak tourism season nears, a budding consensus on how to build Inuvik's tourist market seems to be to target tourists who make it as far as the Yukon.

Economic development officer Dennis Zimmerman says Europe has received increasing exposure to the Yukon Quest dog sled race and the result has been two charter flights into Whitehorse every week directly from Germany.

"We've got to keep them from going to Alaska," he says of those who visit Whitehorse and Dawson City.

"That's a scary one because if they go to Alaska, they can get caught up there and not have time to come here."

Darielle Talarico agrees.

She operates a tour company in Whitehorse and acts as a consultant to the Inuvialuit Development Corporation for their tour company, Arctic Nature Tours.

"The idea is to encourage more people who are going through the Yukon to turn up the road and come up the Dempster to Inuvik," she says.

Talarico estimates 1.4 million people visit Alaska every year and more than 300,000 go to the Yukon. Her estimates are based partly on statistics which state that 80,000 people visited the visitors' centre in Whitehorse and 40,000 to 60,000 people ventured further north to Dawson.

"About 18,000 visit the GNWT visitor centre in Dawson," Talarico says.

Since Arctic Nature Tours is a company that ties together services other companies provide into a package to sell to tourists, Talarico says she is working with rental car companies to try to eliminate any concerns people used to have.

"If there's cracked windshields, they have to be replaced so that deters some," Talarico says.

"But we see this as a growth area."

Arctic Nature Tours hosted a workshop March 18 at the Inuvik Centennial Library where they invited people interested in becoming tourist operators and working to enhance area tourism.

Holman's community corporation manager, Sharon Alanak, who attended the workshop, says Holman is very interested in putting together more tours and creating comfortable lodging for tourists where they can have amenities they are more used to in the South.

New Aklak Air's scheduled flights from Inuvik to Holman make the project viable or at least something that is currently being considered.

For Inuvik, Zimmerman says he would like to see places such as Ingamo Hall capitalize more on the tourist market by offering more programs for tourists.

He also suggests projects such as the community greenhouse and individual initiatives such as Martin Goodliffe's carving corner -- which are marketable tourist draws.

"I think the golf course is a great idea but it doesn't need to be a large scale thing," Zimmerman says.

"People can go in these fancy, dancy golf courses in the south, but up here why not make it more rustic so it's more of an experience."

Golf club president Dave Armstrong says the course is progressing thanks to Sam Kassem who has the contract to demolish Grollier Hall.

Kassem has donated the former residential school's steeple to the golf club as long as the club can pay to transport it and turn it into a club house.