A plan to turn a former youth home on School Draw Avenue into a facility for homeless men fell apart after neighbours objected.

Now, with $1.2 million burning a hole in its building fund, the homelessness coalition has been forced to find creative solutions.

Now arises a plan to swap government land on Old Airport Road across from Extra Foods for the city's former firehall on 44th Street, now owned by developer Les Rocher. At first glance it seems like a bad deal that will cost the government and coalition too much.

Look more deeply and the pieces start to come together.

The former firehall was for sale until recently for less than $1 million.

Under terms of the proposed land swap, the city would get about 20 per cent of the land near the government warehouse. That property would then be transferred to Rocher. The coalition would get the former firehall site.

While both parcels have yet to be fully assessed, the deal includes provisions to make sure value of land changing hands is even.

How the deal will value the old firehall is critical, however. The building must be demolished, so it's of little value to the coalition. In place of the firehall, the group would erect a three-storey building that would provide transitional housing for up to 30 homeless men.

The 44th Street location is one of the best proposed so far for the shelter. It's not smack in the middle of a residential area, is beside the Salvation Army and is still downtown, close to the need.

The bottom line is that Yellowknife is one step closer to filling a critical need: a place where homeless men can get off the streets and build lives for themselves.

While we're on the topic of land, if the Workers' Compensation Board office must move from downtown, why not build it beside the government warehouse along Old Airport Road?

While we're not convinced the office should move from downtown, the land is owned by the government, is near the hospital and on a major transportation route. A transfer would be simple. The only thing it lacks is a lake view.

Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News

It's almost the same for me every year, with only the number of little blood red flowers being different.

I pull out my shoe box of poppies, which now number 47 - one for each year I've lived as a free person.

You would think it would become rather robotic over time - lift the cover, throw in the poppy and put back the box.

Yet, I still find myself reflecting on those who put their lives on the line to protect our freedom.

My family has always answered the call to arms to protect our freedom.

And, like most who answer, some of my relatives came back and some didn't.

I have six close relatives who fought in the First or Second World War.

Four came home. Two did not.

You gain an understanding of the horrors of war when your family has a military background.

Some of my relatives could talk about their experiences, others could not.

All shared one thing in common, any wartime tale always ended in tears.

As a youngster growing up, I listened attentively on the rare occasions when a story was told (usually after the storyteller had digested a fair share of holiday cheer).

I don't know why they captivated me so, other than to say they moved me in a way I was not yet old enough to understand.

One such tale has always stuck with me.

A young merchant mariner was one of a handful of survivors plucked from the Atlantic ocean by British seamen after their cargo ship had been torpedoed by a German U-Boat.

They were brought to London, England, where they had to wait for an Allied convey heading back across the Atlantic.

The young sailor sobbed when the air-raid sirens began to wail.

He made it to the shelter and sat huddled with the masses, shaking as the bombs rocked the ground above them.

In the morning, as he knew would happen, the British captain showed up to gather his Canadian "crew" to search the twisted rubble for survivors.

In three weeks of searching almost every single morning, the Canadians hadn't found a single survivor, only the charred-and-broken remains of those who couldn't, or wouldn't, go to the shelters.

His huge hands shook and his eyes stared off to a distant place as he described the scenes around the mountains of rubble.

Mothers cried out their pain as they pulled out bodies for the waiting Red Cross workers.

People hurried past with their collars pulled up tight, refusing to look in the direction of their own possible destiny.

Smoke stung their eyes and the tips of their fingers bled raw as they clawed through the stone and concrete.

It was a miracle any of them kept their sanity long enough to sail home.

For the rest of his days the man would wake up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat, haunted by the cries of the grieving and the smells of the dead.

He knew the sacrifice made and the price paid well.

And I knew that sailor well. He was my father, Rufus Thompson Greer.

Lest I ever forget...

Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum

I had to chuckle last week at a news headline that declared Samuel Hearne secondary school's replacement had been put on "the fast track" by the GNWT.

The story went on to say construction could start in two or three years. Wow! If that's the fast track, I'd hate to be on the slow track.

But everyone knows that ho-hum-medium-pace-government-doing-what-government-does best-track.

The one marked by paperwork and consultations and reviews and community input, followed by more consultations and wonderful reports. It's the one that most recently brought us this ill-conceived recycling program, which started with an idea and those oh-so-loveable consultations back in 2000/2001.

Nearly five years later, the majority of NWT communities are still without recycling depots, only beverage containers are included in the program (not paper, tin cans, cardboard and other stuff still bound for a landfill near you).

Only when the environment minister was pressured did the government reverse its "save up your cans for when you come to a depot-community" stance. Now the Environment and Natural Resources ministry will pick up the tab for deposit refunds in all the communities that don't have bottle depots.

At current count, this is 27 of the territories' 33 communities. Sounds like it would've been easier for the GNWT to run the depots themselves instead of going the Request For Proposal route to provide a service that is essentially a no-money maker.

However, this recent ENR-picks-up-the-tab about face is definitely great news for pop drinkers in Holman who, I suppose, would have had to wait until the dead of winter and pack their aluminum cans to Inuvik by dog-sled.

This recycling debacle a prime example of government tripping over its fine cape of bureaucratic process. The real embarrassment, however, is that the territory is just jumping on the recycling bandwagon now, nearly 10 years after every other place in North America got on board.

Sure, David Suzuki can stroll into this region, relive the Berger Inquiry and get a pat on the back from everyone but what about the tin cans?

Oh, they're down at the landfill being buried.

Talk about the environmental impact of our burgeoning Northern landfills. Not as sexy as a pipeline, I guess.

Maybe the best route for the GNWT is to scrap the recycling program altogether, let the tin cans and cardboard build up in the landfills another thirty-odd years or so, by which time the natural gas in the Mackenzie pipeline will be nearly exhausted. Then we can sell the Territories to the Japanese, who seem to like visiting here so darn much, as was indicated by the troupe of GNWT officials and dignitaries recently sent overseas on the taxpayer's dime to promote us at Expo 2005. Sound crazy?

Well, I once met a Dutch couple while travelling abroad who thought that this was the best way to go for the Netherlands, their home-country.

"When the polar ice caps melt, we're going to be underwater anyways," they said.

Barring that scenario, cross your fingers that in 30 years time the NWT isn't sinking in a sea of its own unrecycled garbage.

Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum

The ultimate in 'reality TV' should be watching a daily newscast.

The news ought to be packaged and delivered in a manner consistent with what Dragnet's Sgt. Joe Friday always demanded:"Just the facts, Mam."

This opinion piece isn't going to make judgments about whether media are biased or not (that's another argument for another day). No, this is a commentary on the nature of the national and international news we see, hear and read each day: patently negative.

Over the past few months, we have been constantly informed of natural disasters, especially hurricanes and earthquakes, and the devastation they have left behind.

We have learned of even more casualties and death in Iraq. Now there are violent clashes in Paris.

Here's some other things I have gleaned from the news lately:

The avian flu is bound to kill a whole slew of us.

Political scandals just don't go away.

Terrorists could be lurking anywhere.

It seems you're just as likely to encounter gun play in Toronto as a Blue Jays game.

We're polluting the Earth all to heck, using up most of the resources and wreaking havoc on wildlife.

We're a society that's getting fatter and less fit. The Internet is a marvellous tool, but it's rife with fraud.

Oh yeah, and the rising price of gasoline is bound to set off crises. When a barrel of oil hits $60 or more, there are stories about how some people will struggle to afford home-heating fuel this winter.

There is speculation that the skyrocketing cost of oil will trigger inflation, which will lead to hikes in interest rates, which will cause the ruination of the economy (granted not many take it that far, but there has been the occasional allusion to dire economic consequences).

Such reports definitely tend to taper off when gas prices drop again.

It's funny, I was talking to a relative on the phone recently and we remarked on how much cheaper long-distance rates are these days. When was the last time you saw a news item on how people are saving money through their long-distance plans?

Sure, there are occasional reports heralding medical breakthroughs, but there are as many or more stories on medications that have been found to be dangerous or surgeries gone wrong.

Despite it all, we can't bury our heads in the sand. We must remain informed. But we canOt let all the negativity get us down.

In many respects, the world has never known a greater age. We have the convenience of many amazing technologies and there are countless people and organizations out there who should be celebrated.

There is plenty to be grateful for, just don't count on the newscast to remind you of it.

The estimated cost for the Mildred Hall School Community Park Project is $775,000, not $300,000 as reported in the Nov. 11 issue of Yellowknifer. We apologize for the error.

In the list of NWT veterans which appeared in the Nov. 11 weekend edition of Yellowknifer, the name of Hay River resident Bert Stevenson was spelled incorrectly on information submitted. Yellowknifer apologizes for the confusion.