Jillian Dickens
Northern News Services

Baker Lake (Oct 05/05) - Communities across Nunavut took part in picking up litter from the shores and streets, but Baker Lake's efforts surpassed all others.

The two day Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup resulted in more than 200 garbage bags of trash, plus wheelbarrows, shovels, bicycles and other large objects, stripped from the public domain and put in the landfill.

Neal Mautaritnaak was one co-ordinator of the event. "We saw that our shore was starting to get a lot of garbage, like plastic bags, metal, tin, old wood, tires and mufflers," said Mautaritnaak.

"So we thought we should start cleaning it up and protecting our shores."

On Sept. 9, 330 senior and junior high school students broke into teams and plowed the streets in search of garbage, competing to see which team would fill the most garbage bags.

The top team was Team Grizzly. The next day, 80 more community members got together, this time focusing on shoreline litter.

They filled 80 garbage bags.

Jean Pudnak, who helped organize the event alongside Mautaritnaak, said, all told, the event "Went great!.