Derek Neary
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 09/99) - Art Look has a lifetime of Northern memories that he and his wife Harriet are putting on paper with plans to publish his memoirs.

Look, who has lived in Fort Providence since the mid-1970s, began jotting down his recollections last year.

"We started last summer when it was so hot we couldn't do anything else. We sat in the motor home with the air conditioning on and started writing Art's memoirs," Harriet said. Together they run the Riverview Bed and Breakfast and have plenty to share with their guests. "Art has so many interesting stories to tell them and I love to cook so a bed and breakfast does it for us."

Look, 84, was born in Portland, Ore., but moved with his mother and stepfather to Edmonton soon thereafter. At age six, they packed up again and moved to Rat River. At the time there were about 16 families in the area and they lived solely off the land.

Art said he never got along with his stepfather and left home at the age of 12. He lived and hunted with other trappers until he was 15 or 16 and then made a home for himself there.

"I built lots of cabins, really," he recalled. "I was always on my own...there was no welfare in those days. You got out and hunted or you starved."

In 1938, he married Lillian, whom he'd met in Edmonton. They and their two children, Russ and Ken, moved to Yellowknife in 1946. Art began prospecting and assessment work in the mining industry before switching to subcontracting on the first power line being installed between Snare Lake and Yellowknife. In 1955, he got a job with the Game Management Service under the federal government.

"I always said I was going to try all kinds of different things until I was 40 years old and then settled down. That's exactly what I did," he said. "Hell, I even drove a taxi in Yellowknife for nine months."

He did all of this with a grand total of two weeks formal schooling. "I learned for myself. I had to," he said.

Art and Lillian's family grew to include four more children -- Trish, Bruce, Randy and Gayle. Their home, built on two lots that cost them $250, was only the second built outside of what is known as "Old Town" in Yellowknife.

As a game warden, Art carried out game surveys, transplanted animals from one area to another, was responsible for enforcement of hunting laws, assisted trappers and advised them on fur sales. He and his family were transferred frequently. From Yellowknife they went to Fort Good Hope, Fort McPherson, Hay River and then Churchill, Manitoba. In Churchill, Art was acting supervisor for the entire Eastern Arctic. One of his proudest job-related accomplishments was re-establishing the caribou population on South Hampton Island by transferring 54 caribou from Coates Island, with help from Wildlife Management Services. As evidence of their commitment, Lillian even volunteered to nurture an abandoned calf. At last count, he heard the population on South Hampton Island was near 24,000.

"I thought it was one of the nicest things I've done."

The Looks left Churchill in 1968 and returned to Yellowknife where Art put in another seven years and then took early retirement at age 60. They selected a piece of land in Fort Providence, where the bed and breakfast stands today, and decided to make their new home there.

"There was pretty well everything here you needed -- the highway, power and the river. It was just the perfect situation," said Art.

He also started trapping again.

"I never really stopped, you might say, because I was always working with trappers," he said, adding that he did some wildlife consulting for the government.

Tragedy struck in 1991 when Look suffered a heart attack and required triple- bypass surgery. He lost Lillian to cancer later that year. Through it all, he turned to what he knew best to help him cope.

"I never stopped trapping," he said.

It turns out he was lucky in love, meeting Harriet, now his wife of five years, in Fort St. John, B.C. Together they went out on the land and he began to teach Harriet the finer points of trapping and fishing. She can vividly remember her first catch during an ice-fishing expedition.

"I was so excited all day, I was just about delirious."

At age 84, Look was cleaning out his traplines for the season in March. He had some marten and lynx to skin. He gets the occasional wolverine too. However, it's more of a pastime, a form of exercise and a chance to get fresh air now, since it's not really profitable any more, he said. When the two don't go in search of wildlife, it often finds them as bears and bison tend to feed from the flower bed and "fertilize" their garden.

While with IPL, Look started 10-day training programs for school-aged children to the ways of the land. He's also been a Justice of the Peace since 1978 -- or at least he was until someone recently realized he had surpassed the age limit of 75.

"They must have forgot about me. They just gave me my walking ticket six months ago," he said jovially.