Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 13/99) - There's a new must-read book for anyone interested in the history of the NWT legislature.

History in the Making: Under Northern Skies is the name of a new coffee-table book edited Nancy Gardiner.

The book chronicles councils and assemblies dating back to 1951, as well as sections explaining the role of the pages, the sergeant-at-arms and the Speaker of the house.

Northerners such as Michael Ballantyne, Tony Whitford and Dennis Patterson all contributed sections and were on hand for a book launch and dinner at the legislative assembly on Sept. 6.

"The sergeant-at-arms has a long and important history as the guardian of the Speaker," said former sergeant-at-arms Whitford at the launch.

"The job is mostly the safety and comfort of the members and the supervision of the pages."

Whitford said a fun part of his job, when he was the sergeant-at-arms between 1996 and 1998, was working with the pages.

Together they developed a sophisticated collection of hand gestures much like a pitcher and a catcher on a baseball team.

"You can't call out across the floor that such and such a member wants water," he said.

Instead, Whitford and his pages had ways to express that a page was to deliver water or ice or paper clips just by using sign language.

"If a member had a sneeze or the sniffles I would tap the side of my nose gently with my finger. Then I would give a sign for two and then point to the person," he said.

"Then we would fold the two Kleenex in such a way that it would fit under the thumb and that they could set it down in front. It was very subtle and the members appreciated it."

The 1,500 copies of the book cost about $50,000 to produce and were part of the budget for division-related activities, according to legislature public relations officer Ronna Bremmer.

"They're available at Canarctic Graphics and we hope that they will be available throughout the North soon."

Editor Nancy Gardiner said her favourite sections of the book were the ones that various past members wrote.

"What makes it interesting is the human side of politics, but the crux of the book is the political development of the North and autonomy," said Gardiner.