Sachs Harbour (Nov 15/04) - Perhaps living in a community with Utopian ideals would negate the need for a permanent police presence, but Sachs Harbour is not such a community, according to Mayor Andy Carpenter.

"Sometimes it is a dangerous situation," Carpenter said of the lack of law enforcement in his community.

"We get the RCMP here about once a month. If complaints are made, they try to follow up on them then.

"There are not enough RCMP to go around I think."

Carpenter recalls situations involving alcohol and "shooting around," where a police presence would have been a comfort to the 120 residents of Banks Island.

"(The police) don't come right away," he said.

In 1954, Carpenter said RCMP were stationed on the island when there were only two families living there.

"At that time, they had somebody representing Canada up in the North. First it was the Inuit, then it was the RCMP."

Carpenter said many of the current residents are concerned about the lack of police in the tiny seaside hamlet.

"A lot of them want the RCMP over here. A lot of times complaints go to the RCMP, but they say there is not enough crime in the settlement to really put the RCMP here," he said.

"But there are all the crimes being done and not reported because nobody listens anyway."

Besides the misuse of alcohol and firearms, Carpenter said people ignore the wildlife quota system and hunt with abandon. "There's nobody to deal with it. We've tried to get the RCMP or a renewable resources officer, but we haven't been able to get them," he said.

"This fall, we had a case of six female polar bears being taken, which is against the law. Everybody knows that, but they go ahead anyway and shoot them."

Aware of concerns

Staff Sergeant Sid Gray of the Inuvik RCMP said two of his officers spend four days in the community every six weeks.

Gray said he is aware of the concerns of the hamlet, but the decision to have permanent policing in a particular area lies in the hands of the RCMP headquarters and the territorial government.

Gray said if the hamlet has concerns about crimes being left unreported, he would encourage citizens to step forward and report what they know to RCMP.

But Gray does not see any changes in the foreseeable future with regard to policing in Sachs Harbour.

"Based on how things are going right now, and unless my headquarters say otherwise, I'll be continuing with these rotational patrols that I'm making right now," Gray said.

Generally, most of the crime in the area entails property crime, theft, assaults and the like, he said.

"If there was something serious that we were phoned on, we would be up there (immediately)," he said.

Gray said the detachment is flexible and open to change, however. "If the policing situation was to change, then we'd change with it."

Ron Morrison, superintendent with RWED in Inuvik, said there is a casual resource officer based in Sachs Harbour.

"We do hire a local person there. We've been servicing Sachs Harbour out of Inuvik forever. There's never been a full-time wildlife officer in Sachs Harbour."

`The cost of having a full-time officer in that position would be astronomical, he added.

"It would probably cost us in excess of $200,000 a year. But we've recognized there is a need for a wildlife officer in that community because there is a large-scale commercial harvest going on and there are endangered species, like Peary caribou, on the island."

Because the wildlife officer is the "eyes and ears" of the land, Morrison said infractions should be reported to that officer.

"There shouldn't be anyone there who doesn't know who to contact."