Hay River (Mar 13/06) - Allan Gibb says his family and their property have never been a victim of crime in Hay River.

"The worst thing that has happened to us is someone threw an egg against the wall," Gibb says.

Allan Gibb is one of the main organizers of a Neighbourhood Watch program in Hay River. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Still, he is one of the key organizers helping to create a Neighbourhood Watch program for the community. Noting alcohol was easy to get when he was growing up in Edmonton, Gibb says he mainly hopes a Neighbourhood Watch can help young people avoid drinking and using illegal drugs.

"I wonder if it would have saved me from the wasted years I spent as an alcoholic," he says, adding he quit drinking in 1998 and never did use drugs.

It's too easy for young people to get alcohol and drugs in Hay River, he says. Gibb, 59, became part of the effort to create a Neighbourhood Watch program last summer.

"It basically started around safety in the community," he says.

Gibb says organizers have most of the groundwork laid out and are waiting for the spring - when crime usually increases after slowing down over the winter - to launch the program.

"We'll be back in action and we'll be ready," he says, noting the program has a core group of 18 to build upon.

Gibb has lived in Hay River since 1987, but his connection with the North actually goes back to the 1960s.

When he was a high school student in Edmonton, he worked during the summers of 1963-64 helping to build the railway into the NWT. The job involved maintaining a large backhoe used to move earth for the rail line.

That was when he was first attracted to the Northern lifestyle.

"I always wanted to come back here."

Gibb explains he wanted to be involved in the development of the North. His return was in the mid-1980s, when he worked for two summers at Northern Transportation Company Limited (NTCL) camps in Hay River and Tuktoyaktuk.

That was when he met his future wife, Jacqueline, who was also working for NTCL and still does. They were married in 1987 and settled in Hay River, where Gibb worked with NTCL until 1998. He now works for Grimshaw Trucking. Gibb says he loves living in Hay River, but recalls it was different when he first moved to town.

"I don't ever remember worrying about the doors being locked, except when I went to bed at night and that was ingrained from living in the city," he says, adding Hay River was a place where you could relax.

However, he says things started to change around 1998. "The pace was picking up."

At that time, he also heard more stories of illegal drugs in town, and several years ago crack cocaine made its appearance. Gibb says he does not want to judge anyone using or selling drugs, or bootlegging alcohol - just two of the things a Neighbourhood Watch program will seek to combat. "But in both instances, you're doing harm, either to yourself or to someone else," he says.