Derek Neary
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (Sep 21/01) - Students Michael Ehrenberg and Laetitia Levavasseur sat transfixed in front of the television last Tuesday morning.

Like millions of people around the world, they watched in utter disbelief as planes hijacked by terrorists slammed into the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania.

"I was shocked, I guess," said Levavasseur, a Grade 11 student at Deh Gah school in Fort Providence. "I thought, 'What if it had been me?'"

Ehrenberg, who is in Grade 11 at Echo Dene school in Fort Liard, said, "It's very tragic. We feel sorry for all those people who died."

The fallout from the cataclysm will be higher airline ticket prices and higher fuel prices, Levavasseur predicted. Ehrenberg added that the stock market has been affected, and he said the terrorist group responsible for the tragedy will likely be bombed.

At both schools, more than 500 kilometres apart, senior high students assembled last Tuesday and watched the drama continue to unfold on television.

"I think for them to visually see it, it has more of an effect than if they just hear it on the radio," Deh Gah counsellor Margaret Thom said. "I think it has touched our students a great deal.

"There's been a lot of praying in our circles ... and discussion as to how these kind of tragedies affect everybody even though we're thousands of miles away," she said.

The saturation of media coverage has made the issue practically impossible to avoid, she noted.

Teachers confide in each other and find comfort in leading circle discussions, said Thom.

"It has its toll on a person. I've been coming to work quite exhausted," she said. "You can't help but be caught up in it."

Echo Dene school counsellor Stella Nadia said students there are encouraged to discuss any concerns or fears they may have as a result of the tragedy.

At Thomas Simpson school, counsellor Norm McNaught is forthright in acknowledging that the world is now a different place. He tells students not to hesitate to talk to him or another teacher if they are having trouble dealing with the new reality.

"It's not something to be ashamed of if you're feeling bad," he said. "Just think of all the other people in the world feeling the same way right now."