Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Kugluktuk. (Mar 18/02) - Dan Harvey is sending baby-wipes to his son, a soldier stationed in Afghanistan.

"He said they don't have showers there," said Harvey, a 27-year resident of Kugluktuk. "But he needs those baby-wipes."

Cpl. Tommy Evikhoak Harvey is in the mountains of Afghanistan with Canada's contribution to Operation Anaconda, targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda holdouts. - photo courtesy of Dan Harvey

Harvey's 24-year-old son, Cpl. Tommy Evikhoak Harvey, is with the Princess Patricia Battalion, the main Canadian contingent fighting alongside the U.S.-led international force against the last remnants of Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in the eastern mountains of Afghanistan.

Until last week, Canada's role in the effort to root out those believed responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., had been a low-key one.

But on Wednesday, news agencies reported the first major Canadian offensive against the holdouts. No casualties among Canada's troops were reported.

"I was a little worried about him going over there, I have to admit," said Harvey, who talks to his son on the phone every few weeks. "I said to Tom, 'You know this is pretty dangerous,' and he said, 'Dad, this is what I'm trained for. This is my job.'"

Harvey is no stranger to sitting by the phone or turning up the volume on the television when the news comes on.

In 2000, his son was on a peacekeeping a tour in Bosnia. But that was different.

"He was (in Bosnia) as a peacekeeper to help the country get back on its feet," said Harvey. "But now the Princess Patricia is going to battle."

Tommy Evikhoak's former girlfriend, Janet Kanayok, 23, also worries and waits for biweekly phone calls from Afghanistan.

"I was scared when I heard he was going," said Kanayok, "I didn't know anything about Afghanistan except Osama bin Laden was there."

Kanayok lives in Holman and takes care of their two children, six-year-old Brendan, and one-year-old Chloe.

Even though Kanayok fears for Tommy's life, the dangerous posting has changed the way she sees him.

"I see him as a better person," said Kanayok -- "a more brave and mature man. And I'm happy to brag about him to my kids and my friends even thought we aren't together."

Brendan misses Tommy, too.

"I tell him on the phone I miss you, I love you and take care," said Brendan. "I thought of him a lot on Tuesday, just cause."

Sometimes the waiting is too much to bear when a loved one walks in the world of bullets and land mines.

"It makes me cry, it does," said Harvey when he thinks about his once wayward, 18-year-old son who almost dropped out of school but is now at the centre of the Canada's first major battle since the Korean War half a century ago.

In those moments he stares at a photo of Tommy sitting on a staircase dressed in a new Cubs outfit, a little brown dog beside him.

"I don't know who is prouder in the photo, the dog of Tommy or Tommy of his new outfit," said Harvey.

Tommy is Harvey's second youngest child. He was adopted in Hay River as an eight-month-old infant, and grew up in Kugluktuk.

Harvey's oldest son, Joseph, died 16 years ago in Edmonton.

Tommy almost dropped out of the army during his aboriginal pre-boot camp training days in Borden, Ont., when his mother, Mary, died in 1998.

"If he would have left he couldn't finish the program," said Harvey, going on to tell the story of Tommy jogging five kilometres, eating lunch and joining the evening drill the day after his mother died.

"I told him his mother would want him to stay," said Harvey.