Radishes from Rae, lettuce from Lutsel K'e, watermelons from Wrigley -- the possibilities are endless.

RWED Minister Stephen Kakfwi has announced a program designed to encourage Northerners to get into the market garden business.

And why not? Although the growing season in the North is short, it is intense. There is a need for fresh produce in the North. The stuff we get up here is pretty weary by the time it gets on the shelf.

Then there is the price. It is hard to believe that produce in season grown in the North could be more expensive than what we are used to paying.

The grant, up to $5,000, is also available to cultivate Northern specialties such as berries and mushrooms.

Good news all around for green thumbs.

It was disturbing recently to hear Transportation Minister Jack Anawak say, "The people have the right to be served, with or without the media."

As one of Nunavut's more experienced politicians, Anawak should be well aware of the vital role the media plays in ensuring the people ARE properly served, both in conveying information about government policies and initiatives, and as a public tool to raise questions and concerns about these initiatives.

There is a major problem in the works if department ministers don't have enough faith in their front line employees to allow them to field routine questions without their approval. Our new government needs a communication policy put into effect quickly, or the credibility of its long-standing platform of openness and accountability will be seriously undermined.

Hockey players in Grise Fiord will have one man and one man only to thank this winter when they're lacing up their skates to hit the brand new community rink. And that's none other than Northern businessman Shorty Brown. The 69-year-old is now in the midst of a emergency skate drive for the community.

No stranger to these drives -- Shorty collected 10,000 pairs of skates in 1996 for Northern kids -- he had vowed never to get involved in a hockey equipment drive again.

But when Grise Fiord's recreation co-ordinator told him there were about 60 kids who desperately needed equipment, Shorty, like the Shorty we all know, couldn't resist.

Go, Shorty, go.

Just when you think Ottawa might be getting a grip on the fact that things up here aren't quite the same as in the south, someone says something that leaves you shaking your head.

The latest example comes with federal boating safety regulations and the two-year exemption we received in the NWT and Nunavut. That reprieve came about as a result of the feds realizing that boating is more than a hobby up here: It's a way of life and often a living.

The new Canadian Coast Guard's Small Vessel Regulations became law in the rest of Canada on April 1. We were given an extra two years for education and community consultation.

Which is a good thing. What's less than flattering is a comment last week by a Coast Guard official saying the extension gave his department a chance to "...introduce things that people had never seen before, like PFDs and lifejackets..."

Well, duh.

Giving the North a couple years to get used to the idea of wearing lifejackets and handing them out free to assist in that process are terrific ideas, but do they have to be quite so patronizing about it?

With possibly the highest incidence of boating fatalities in Canada, the need for education and enhanced boating safety is apparent. Likewise, the individual and traditional nature of Northerners means some special handling is necessary. Still, does Ottawa have to apply this Big Brother attitude to everything Northern?

Attitude means a great deal in any interaction between people and that one line sums up a great deal of the problem with negotiations between the North and Ottawa -- and the south in general.

There is a difference between understanding and acknowledging special needs and traditional values and simply being patronizing.

Until that simple difference is grasped by our counterparts in the south, change and any kind of meaningful dialogue is going to be difficult, if not impossible.

During these first few wobbly steps by Canada's newest territory it is sometimes easy to forget the fundamental idea for creating Nunavut -- that the people of Nunavut know best what's best for them.

The termination of the GNWT's downpayment assistance pilot program serves as a reminder of the advantages Nunavut brings.

Made in the west for the west, MDAPP was 10 times as popular there as it was in the east. The more than $5.5 million spent on the program was used mainly to entice middle income and high income diamond workers to Yellowknife from the south. Money the government brought in from its share of the income tax from the workers would more than pay for the program, so the reasoning for it went.

It remains to be seen whether the program achieved its goal, but one thing its inventors knew from the outset was the return to Nunavut would be negligible.

Nunavummiut would be right to wonder how far their half of the cost of the program would have gone toward addressing the needs of those who need help most -- people with little or no income, people who are living in crowded and substandard conditions, barely able to feed themselves and their children.

That one family living in those conditions would be forsaken to fatten the wallets of Yellowknife real estate agents and give $80,000 a year diamond mine workers a break is appalling.

The southern mindset GNWT bureaucrats brought to the housing problem and their political masters' lack of focus has been tried and proven inadequate.

Solving the problem requires the kind of fresh approach the Nunavut government has promised it will bring to the new territory.

That creativity must be brought to bear on all elements of the housing equation, including financing, construction and ownership.