Yellowknife (Mar 21/03) - It's challenging enough to run a contracting company with your brother when you're both in your early twenties.

Clayton Norris, manager of aboriginal banking at the Bank of Montreal in Calgary, and Heather Bourassa who runs a contracting business in Fort Good Hope stand beside tabulated recommendations from this year's NeXplore conference. - Darren Stewart/NNSL photo

Twenty-year-old Heather Bourassa said the weather and the isolation make running her business a particular challenge in Fort Good Hope.

So Bourassa jumped at the opportunity to participate in the NeXplore conference in Yellowknife last year, and found it such a rewarding experience she came back this year as well.

"It gave me such a good understanding of the bigger picture in the territory," said Bourassa. "Working in Good Hope you don't always realize how things work outside the community."

The week-long conference, which wrapped up last Friday, brings aboriginal youth to Yellowknife from communities around the NWT to meet and workshop with politicians and established business people.

NeXplore has been organized every year since 1997 by the NWT Community Mobilization Society. Organizers ask communities to recommend people aged 18 to 30 years old, who show promise in the business world, to take part. The conference is paid for by governments and business in the NWT.

"Every cent spent on this conference is fundraised," said Jamey Coughlin, NeXplore coordinator.

Bourassa, who took over her father's business with her 24-year old brother three years ago, said the conference schedule is gruelling, but worth the time.

"We meet at eight, have a working breakfast, run off to meet a minister, go all day and finish at eight that night," she said. "It's a pretty full day."

"It's worth it, coming away with a broader view of the situation in the territory."

The conference also involves elders and chiefs from the community who bring a crucial cultural perspective, according to Kim Deneron, NeXplore chair.

"NeXplore gives the youth a good idea how business works in the North and how government works in the North, but it also includes a cultural aspect, which I think is important to people in the North," she said.

"Especially with our economy growing so fast it's important to look at the big picture and look at what opportunities there are out there."

Deneron said she hopes that the youth take what they learn at the conference and share it with people in their community.