Brent Reaney
Northern News Services

Fort Franklin (June 06/05) - Sitting and waiting to deliver messages and water to politicians, working as a page is not very glamourous.

But you do get to meet members of the legislative assembly while getting an up-close look at the political process.

Deline's Kyle Bayha, 16, left, and Cyre Yukon, 17, worked as pages in the legislative assembly May 25-27. Here they pose with the famous polar bear just after completing their three-day shift.

So, how do MLAs treat those who deliver their drinks?

"Some of (the MLAs) really noticed us, some of them didn't really care," says 17-year-old Cyre Yukon.

From May 25-27, Yukon and 16-year-old Kyle Bayha, both from Deline, made their contribution to Northern democracy by working as pages.

Yukon says she did it "just to try something new and it's good for the resume."

She says the hardest part was sitting for so long.

Both students say they enjoyed the experience.

But the number of rules were a bit of a surprise. As part of the protocol, Yukon had to tuck her standard issue black golf shirt into her pleated khaki pants prior to taking a photo for this story.

And all of the pages learned the proper way to serve water, by keeping their pinkie finger under the bottom of the glass.

"You can't touch the top of the glass," she says.

"I thought it would be less complicated than this."

Besides proper water placement, the teens memorized an eight-station rotation as part of a two-hour training session.

"It was fun," says the 16-year-old Bayha. "You can actually learn something." While he liked listening to the debates, sitting outside the assembly, Bayha says he could not hear the discussion.

Both youngsters say they would consider running for political office in the future.

It will be tough though, considering they'd be running against each other to represent the Sahtu region.

"That's no problem," Yukon says with a laugh when asked how she'd feel running against Bayha in an election.