Friday, August 19, 2005
So before we find ourselves neck-deep in capital spending on a fancy new library as part of a City Hall civic park, let's slow down to ask if Yellowknife needs a new one.
To start, for a city of 20,000 people, it's a darned fine facility. The 74,000-item collection is well used. The space is bright and comfortable. The staff is friendly and helpful.
The walls could use some colour, but that's an easy fix. Just talk to the arts community or city schools to get some paintings on the walls. They'd probably love to have their works on public display.
While there's no room for the library to grow, jumping into a new building before deciding what to do with the old space would be a mistake.
Let's remember taxpayers bought the space in 1997 for $3.5 million, after already investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Centre Square development.
To move out now would be a mistake, given the apparent glut of office space. As well, the city plans to spend $232,800 on renovations next year in the second phase of a $400,000 renovation plan that began two years ago.
Suggestions that the library is hard to find may be true for newcomers, but once you know where it is, that's not an issue. About 50 people an hour find their way inside just fine. It's "not the kind of library the city should have?" Enough already.
While we would all love to have the best for our town, now is not the time to begin planning to spend millions of dollars on a facility that's not yet really necessary.
Just like we'd all love to have a new car and a bigger house, a new library is a luxury that Yellowknife doesn't really need or can afford right now.
You gotta love the NWT Mining Heritage Society. This active, ambitious, never-say-never group is doing its best to preserve bits of this city's mining past.
For those of us who never knew Yellowknife during its gold-mining heyday, it's easy to ignore the crumbling structures at Giant Mine or the demolition of Con Mine.
Not so for society members. They're working to preserve Giant's A-shaft so it will stand tall to remind everyone that Yellowknife is here in part thanks to hard-rock miners.
And we really hope plans for a mining museum come to reality.
Everyone ought to get behind the society with encouragement and cash because preserving our mining past can be an important part of our tourism future.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
As a journalist, I learned a long time ago that human attitudes and behaviour will always be constant sources of amazement.
So, I thought I had taken it completely in stride this past week when I was stopped by a local resident and criticized for writing far too many good-news-type articles in the newspaper.
I had to stop ignoring all the bad news, I was politely told, and start being more critical of the system.
I can honestly say this was the first time I was ever accused of being a love, luck and lollipops type of writer.
However, I didn't really find the criticism as peculiar as its timing.
During my first 10 days back in Rankin after my vacation, I was actually feeling a little overwhelmed by what felt like a steady stream of bad-news-type stories.
Accidental deaths, dog attacks, crime sprees and violent acts are not pleasant stories to cover when they all involve or affect people you know personally.
And, c'mon, I've been known to take the odd swipe or two at the "system," yet, I found the person's words still bugging me two days later.
Then I realized what was bugging me was the idea of letting the bad guys win.
To me, filling the newspaper week after week with nothing but gloom, doom and despair, while ignoring those in our communities who work so hard to make things better, would be doing exactly that -- letting the bad guys win.
News is news, and must be reported, good or bad.
However, although there are times we all have moments of doubt, the good things in our lives still heavily outweigh the bad.
Yes, there is bad news again in this week's paper.
But there are also stories of heroism, of community leaders fighting to improve the quality of life in our hamlets, and of graduates receiving their diplomas in a school for the very first time.
You will also find a rising hockey star, from right here in our region, talking about the excitement of the upcoming NHL year, the hopes of a group of wrestlers battling adversity as they get set to compete on a national stage, and a local athlete who may have to choose between two sports he loves to play this coming year.
The one thing bad news and good news have in common, is that they are both part of life.
And, the job of a community newspaper is to tell the stories of the people in our towns who make life so interesting.
That being said, it is only logical that the good news stories occupy the vast majority of our pages, because we have so many good, interesting and determined-to-succeed people living in our communities.
At the risk of being somewhat philosophical (hey, it's an opinion piece, I'm allowed) - to accept the bad, is simply to accept the inevitable.
But, to celebrate the good surrounding us every day, that, valued readers, is to celebrate life itself.
Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum
"(September) is the month when the great fish come. Anyone can be a fisherman in May." - Santiago from Ernest Hemmingway's novel, Old Man and the Sea
Judging by the variety of reactions to last week's access and benefits summit in Inuvik between pipeline proponents and aboriginal leadership, one wonders if everybody was attending the same meeting.
While one group continues to harp on about Imperial's socio-economic impact obligations, another expresses concern about securing lucrative contracts inside its settlement region. That's if the pipeline project ever sees the light of day.
That said, progress is being made.
At the beginning of the year things were looking bleak before the Deh Cho and the feds patched things up.
Then, four months later Imperial announces it's halting work on the project, citing unreasonable demands from the communities in terms of socio-economic compensation.
The company, which is the lead proponent in the pipeline project, stated its intentions to continue talks, even while some aboriginal negotiators were saying the access and benefits package put forward by Imperial last week in Inuvik was miles from making the grade.
Like Santiago, the persistent fisherman in Hemmingway's story, nobody is backing away from the mother-of-all-fish waiting to be landed, if and when the project gets the go-ahead.
With Joint Review Panel and National Energy Board hearings still to take place, issues regarding the preferential contract awarding processes are as distant as the harbour seems to Santiago the moment the old fisherman hooks his prize marlin, only to have it drag him out further to sea before being completely devoured by sharks.
I suppose this entire Hemmingway metaphor is not so much a case of casting pipeline players into various roles in the tale, rather the idea that, as in the story, each player - the sea, the fish and the fisherman - relies on the others.
Put another way, without the gas, or the proponents or those who will be affected - for good or ill - along the pipeline corridor, the Mackenzie Gas Project would not exist in its current state.
Since everybody appears ready to continue negotiating, the pipeline is far from dead in the water. And so the players will meet again this September in Calgary.
The question that remains is whether they will land the big one or continue to chase what seems to move further away with each passing day.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum
Essential (adjective): Necessary, indispensable.
That's the Oxford Dictionary's definition of the word.
The debate rages on as to whether the Lafferty ferry should be designated an "essential service" to keep it running should crew members go on strike.
Twice each year, during freeze-up and break-up, people in Fort Simpson, like those in Wrigley, have to pay more for produce and dairy.
Those goods and others are transported by helicopter across the Liard River (or the Mackenzie River in Wrigley's case). For three to four weeks in spring and again in late fall, vehicles are unable to get from one side of the waterway to the other. That's a fact, and we've lived with it for many years.
The only way to change it would be to build a bridge as is planned in Fort Providence. So, being faced with the prospect of having no river shuttle during the summer is highly unusual and it would most certainly be a huge inconvenience. But can we say the ferry is absolutely necessary? There appears to be at least one argument that makes the case. Although traffic would be greatly reduced, anyone who gets into an accident on the opposite side of the Liard River from Fort Simpson is exposed to greater risk.
Paying an extra buck for two litres of milk or an additional 50 cents for carrots isn't life threatening. Lying in the ditch with internal bleeding, perhaps unconscious, following a serious car accident, now that is a matter of life or death.
Yes, a helicopter can often be used a substitute for emergency purposes - it's even faster than the ambulance. However, as one astute Fort Simpson resident pointed out, helicopters are subject to grounding due to low cloud cover or heavy smoke. Then there is a possibility that no helicopters are immediately available.
It may be quite an unlikely scenario, but if you or your family members were the ones severely injured in a crumpled truck and a helicopter could not be dispatched to come to your aid, then you would probably be convinced that the ferry is an essential service. It's the only way the ambulance could arrive. That would seem to make the vessel necessary, indispensable.
The legislation pertaining to the matter states that the service must be maintained "to the extent necessary to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public."
Would that mean it's permissible for the ferry crew to picket so long as they get the vessel going should an ambulance need to make a crossing? That's a grey area.
Then there is the fact that the ferry currently doesn't run after midnight or start until 8 a.m. Because there are fewer vehicles on the road at those hours, accidents are pretty well unheard of at those times, but still possible. So that's another grey area.
The "essential service" label is going to be a tough call for the Canada Labour Relations Board. Practically everyone in Fort Simpson and Wrigley is waiting with bated breath for their decision.
News/North wishes to make clear that the woman walking in front of the downtown Reddi Mart in a News/North Yellowknife edition photograph, Aug. 15, does not have anything to do with crack-cocaine use.
In a column appearing in last Friday's Yellowknifer ("The Fed's next Northern failure," Aug. 12), it's stated that boater proficiency tests will become mandatory nationally by September 2009. According to Transport Canada, the NWT and Nunavut are exempt from that deadline.
The correct web address for the Inuvik Community Greenhouse is www.inuvikgreenhouse.com. The Drum regrets any confusion last week's issue may have caused web-surfing gardeners!