Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Sep 17/99) - The fur was flying at Ingamo Hall last week, but that was a good thing.

The reason was the 1999 instalment of the Beaufort Delta Regional Trappers Workshop -- a three-day affair that covered both the current state and future of the global fur industry. Organizers included Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, the Gwich'in and Inuvialuit renewable resource boards and Ian Ross, a former RWED manager who has since helped launched L'Heritage furriers out of Calgary, Alta.

"It provides the trappers with a form of networking -- and covers what works, what doesn't and questions about pricing," said Robert Charlie from the Gwich'in Renewable Resources Board. "The other part is a youth component -- we're trying to encourage younger trappers to get out on the land."

Charlie said some 85 trappers from across the Inuvik region registered for the workshop -- ranging from serious veterans to those who simply enjoy getting out and doing some casual trapping through the winter.

Brian Johnston from the Wildlife Management Advisory Council said it was both students from Samuel Hearne secondary school and from the Natural Resource Training Program at Aurora College who joined the trappers at Ingamo and out at Shell Lake for a practical trapping demonstration.

But the highlight of the workshop was presented Thursday evening following a traditional feast -- in the form of a fashion show highlighting designs from L'Heritage's Genuine Mackenzie Valley Furs label, which was first launched last June. Designed by D'Arcy Moses in Fort Simpson and modelled by local girls, the creations included coats of muskrat with red fox trim, sheared lynx and mink.

While Ross said aspects of the trapper-training workshop have been covered annually -- ever since global trapping laws began changing more than a decade ago -- he described the fashion presentation to the trappers as a revolution.

"Trappers can finally see where their products are going, and learn more about the industry," he said.

Ross said L'Heritage was the result of the recommendations of a territorial steering committee in 1991 and he seemed to envision a bright future for both the company, the trappers and the North.

He said L'Heritage is holding talks with a number of big and small companies in and out of the territory and that its second line of coats is in the offing.

RWED's Francois Rossouw shared Ross' enthusiasm.

"The trappers are warming up to the idea of change," he said, "and it's been positive -- especially when we're able to say that some of the fur they've trapped is in these coats."

Rossouw stressed that plans for arctic furs stretch well beyond southern markets -- and he said seven Genuine Mackenzie coats would be joining the Team Canada business delegation on its upcoming trip to Japan.