Mayor assures public action will be taken
Paula White
Northern News Services
The mayor issued a press release of his own to assure the public the robbery was an "isolated" incident.
According to the RCMP's statement, issued on July 12, a male tourist had been asleep in his tent at Panisak Territorial Park when two males, armed with a knife, slashed his tent and robbed him of some personal items. The man was not injured. The incident led RCMP to issue an alert to all tourists travelling to Tuktoyaktuk that there are no proper camping facilities in the area and staying overnight in a tent would be at their own risk.
This was followed by Pokiak's statement on July 13. The mayor said he sent the release after he received a number of calls about the incident when it was mentioned on North Beat, CBC North's televised news show.
"This press release would be in response to the RCMP release," Pokiak said. "This is the normal way it should have been done to begin with."
In his release, the mayor assured all visitors that they were welcome in Tuktoyaktuk and that the community was taking action to prevent further similar incidents from occurring.
"We are a very fast-growing community, we have a lot of young people and when that happens there are always social problems," he said. "This is a nice place to live...I'm not afraid to live in Tuk. It's unfortunate the incident happened and we are going to start to better the situation for tourists."
Pokiak plans to arrange a meeting with appropriate community organizations to promote Tuktoyaktuk as an attractive tourist destination. He also plans to increase the hours and frequency of patrols by the community's bylaw officer during the summer months.
"It is regrettable that this incident occurred and, although it is an isolated incident, all of us within the community must work together to ensure that all visitors and friends to the community are welcome and treated with the utmost respect and hospitality," the release stated.
Police are still investigating the incident.
