Over 700 contest entries
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 02/01) - The NWT Literacy Council is more than pleased with the results of their 2001 writing contest.
Ten judges read through all the entries received. With a grand total of 758 entries, that's more then double the amount received last year.
"The judges for the contest made a huge contribution by reading all the entries," says the NWT council representative Katherine Robinson.
"They are asked to make difficult decisions knowing that for every winning entry there is another that could easily be a winner too. Without the volunteer judges, the writing contest would not take place."
Thirteen-year-old Sarah Darkes of Fort Smith was the overall winner. She was awarded the $500 Norman Macpherson Award.
Darkes is currently living in Victoria, B.C, and her story tells of her love for the Slave River, the strength of which she only discovered while living away from it.
Two surprise entries came from Radilih Koe. For the first time ever, the council received syllabic entries. Elders Dominique Tobac and Georgina Tobac were both recognized for their stories written in Slavey syllabics.
"I'd never seen them written at all," says Robinson.
Robinson also notes a husband and wife pair, who both won in the categories to which they submitted: Madeline Sheridan won in the adult/legend category and Peter Hagar won in the adult/poetry category. William Firth, who won the Norman Macpherson award two years ago for his story written in Gwich'in, submitted again this year and was recognized for his story.
"The person who judged the Gwich'in entries said the writing was really wonderful."
But Robinson is disappointed with the low number of entires in the French category.
"We only received two this year. It's really bad. I don't know what we're doing wrong there."
Entries came in from all corners of the NWT. From Fort Smith to Tsiigehtchic people young and old shared their stories and thoughts in written form.
"Fort Simpson has a long-standing, great track record for submitting entries, and they kept that up this year. Same with Fort Smith -- lots of winners this year. And lots of winners from the Sahtu, which was good to see," says Robinson.
She adds that the region had held heir own writing contest, then re-submitted.
"That certainly helped in bumping up our totals."
Robinson is already thinking of next year.
"It would be nice to see some of the smaller communities get involved," she says.
All winning entries for the year 2001 will be published in an insert in a future edition of News/North, as well at the council's own annual publication Northern Writes.
