.
Search
 Email this articleE-mail this story  Discuss this articleWrite letter to editor  Discuss this articleOrder a classified ad  Print this page

Good for another year

Jillian Dickens
Northern News Services

Holman (Aug 29/05) - The community of Holman was sent into a frenzy with the arrival of the MV Nunakput barge, Aug. 18.

"It was like a combination of Christmas and the liberation of the armies in World War Two," said Helen Kalvak Elihavik school teacher, Mark LeBourdais. Being new to Holman, the arrival was a first for the teacher.

When the barge peaked out from the fog, kids ran from their classrooms to greet it.

The vessel - three joined barges towed by a tug - brought with it a year's supply of fuel, food, vehicles, and building materials for new a residential four-plex.

"The four-plex is being built now," said Holman resident Eddie Okheena, who can see the structure from his house.

Mayor Peter Malgokak hopes the building will be complete by the end of the season.

The Northern Store barge order totalled 273,000 kilograms of supplies - almost twice the size of last year's order.

"We were pretty well in dire need of the barge," said Tony Demerah, who works at the Northern Store. "The shelves were getting pretty empty.... For a month solid people were asking when the barge was going to arrive."

Since its arrival, prices at the store have dropped by almost half.

"We are trying now to keep barge prices the whole year, that's why we ordered so much," said Demerah.

Highlights of the shipment, said Demerah, are the 50 or 60 varieties of drinks that now stock the shelves, including Fruitopia.

"People are coming into the store every day to check out what's new."

As always, it took a few days for the community to settle back to normal after the barge arrived.

"It was a busy couple of days," said Gordon Norberg from Northern Transportation Company Limited. "We try to unload as quickly as we can."

"A lot of young fellows get to work for extra hours and earn some extra money."

Demerah was pleasantly surprised of the number of people wanting to help unload.

"I've been here for three years and this is the first time ever there's been people who wanted to work. We usually have to chase people down and this year we had to cut people out," he said.

Aaron Pearce helped offload for the hamlet.

"I got an extra 40 hours for myself," said Pearce.

The barge sailed from Tuktoyaktuk to Sachs Harbour - where it was a couple days late to arrive due to ice - before arriving in Holman.