Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 21/99) - The North is planning to enter the next millennium in a big way and it's receiving help from Ottawa to do it.

With a total budget of $145 million, the Canada Millennium Partnership Program is currently providing funding for four millennium projects in the Northwest Territories and two in Nunavut -- as well as the national Millennium Youth Consultation on Canada venture.

Intended to encourage Canadians to mark the new millennium in meaningful and creative ways, the partnership is promoting initiatives that explore heritage, celebrate achievements or that leave a lasting impact.

"People have come out with a lot of strong ideas," said Ginette Martel at the partnership's Ottawa office.

The NWT's projects include Yellowknife's Ceremonial Centre of the Northwest Territories, the Gwich'in Environmental Knowledge Project, Monarch of the Tundra -- Honouring the Barren-Ground Grizzly Through Education, as well as Northern Sculpture.

Nunavut's initiatives are the Fifth Thule Photo Collection and the Kayaks to Kamiks exhibit.

A number of non-funded events are also slated to take place across the territories. These include the National Aboriginal Invitational Hockey Tournament and a solstice celebration in Norman Wells.

Projects of the century

Jamie Bastedo found out recently he'll receive $21,000 toward the grizzly project -- one-third of its estimated cost.

"I took 10 days off to write the proposal and then crossed my fingers for six months," he said.

Bastedo runs his Cygnus Environmental Consulting company out of Yellowknife, but provides assessment and education services around the North.

He said he came up with the idea for the grizzly project -- which includes a children's book, education guide and poster contest -- through his 20 years of travel across the North.

"Having worked out in the tundra environment and walking out in the grizzly's world and having worked with grizzly scientists, I realized this bear is not getting a lot of air time," he said.

Bastedo said the book will reveal the bear's world to children through the eyes of a mother grizzly and her cub.

"It always amazes me, and I confess worries me, that kids can be buffered from nature," he said. "There's nothing like sticking your face into some nice wet moss or being surprised in the bush by a fox or a bear."

Up in Inuvik, Peter Clarkson and the Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board have also turned bookish -- in their efforts to complete the $268,900 environmental knowledge project -- for which they received $35,000 from Ottawa.

Clarkson, the board's executive director, said the ongoing project seeks to record the traditional knowledge of Gwich'in elders. They've already produced the book Gwich'in Words About the Land on local wildlife and are planning a second instalment for 2000.

"Gwich'in elders are actually the authors, with some staff facilitating," he said.

Clarkson said the project also involves elders going into local schools to tell their tales.

"It's kind of neat, because it involves both elders and children," he said.

Lawrie Barton said Arctic Bay's Kayaks to Kamiks project also involves dispensing traditional knowledge -- about traditional clothing.

"I was just talking to one of the elders one day and we discussed ways of keeping traditional knowledge alive and how to get examples of how things were made in earlier days," she said. "The idea is that the women who make them will one day be gone."

Barton, a former school principal, said she has worked closely with the Inummaritat elders' group to make the project happen. She said Inummaritat will stage a fashion show of traditional clothing next Christmas and that the designs will then be placed on permanent display in the hamlet.

Barton said the elders will also visit classes through the Elders in the School program and record their clothes-making techniques on film.

Barton said she always keeps an eye out for funding for Arctic Bay programs and that the partnership program is providing one-third of the estimated $76,000 project. She expects the remainder to come through donations -- of money, time and material.

"I've done a lot of proposal-writing for this community -- whenever I see a dollar sign...," she said.

Meanwhile down in Baker Lake, the Fifth Thule millennium project is less about recording history than about presenting recorded history.

David Webster manages the Inuit Heritage Centre and said Fifth Thule is the name of the expedition undertaken by Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen some 75 years ago. He said the hamlet's project involves purchasing and presenting photographs of the expedition from a Copenhagen museum -- as well those historic photographs collected from people who have worked in Baker Lake, including retired teachers and RCMP officers.

"Our elders are able to identify some of the people in the photographs," he said, "and the list of donators seems to be growing -- just by word of mouth."

Word of mouth and North-South dialogue is the whole idea behind the country-wide Millennium Youth Consultation on Canada enterprise.

Kathleen Freeman in Toronto said the project involves sending a group of 200 young Canadians to various locations around the country to "exchange ideas and develop the practical knowledge and tools required to become involved in their communities."

But just as the world is evolving in entering the millennium, so too, Freeman said, is the consultation project. It remains to be seen whether funding will allow for a trip to Iqaluit.