Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Struggling to provide lots for new homes, City Hall seems prepared to sacrifice every rock and tree it owns in order to turn Yellowknife into a concrete jungle.
It's here that residents must say enough is enough.
We've seen enough blast and build that tears apart our natural landscape to make building easier for developers who pocket the profits.
Developing the Hordal nature preserve first came up last year with release of the residential growth study. That study recommended that to solve a looming housing crunch, the City could rezone various pieces of parks and greenspace around Yellowknife.
An informal Yellowknifer poll last year showed a majority of people were against the plan.
But pieces of it are going ahead because, according to the City, 2,000 new dwellings are needed in Yellowknife by 2019.
A plan to rezone the Hordal land started winding its way through City Hall this past week.
There are three plans to make room for new manufactured homes: one proposing eight new lots, the second 23 lots and the third, 30 lots.
With a mix of old and new manufactured homes already packed along Hordal and adjacent streets, putting 30 more into that greenspace would be a tragedy.
However, just saying no to rezoning is not a simple, black and white answer to the City's land problem.
With Yellowknives Dene still negotiating their land claim, City Hall is stuck with no access to Commissioner's land that would allow planners to turn attention away from greenspace.
Unfortunately, recent blast-and-build development history has left a bad taste in many people's mouths.
Residents must force City Hall to find a middle ground that preserves greenspace and allows for some development.
The city must not get back into the development business as it did in first phases of Niven Lake, but it can put more guidelines in place to direct how subdivisions are built.
Rather than blasting and mowing down trees and plopping trailers on shoe-horned pieces of property, lots should be carved out of the landscape, fronting onto curving streets that preserve the natural look of some areas.
That may be a little more expensive for developers and buyers, but bigger lots that preserve more rock, trees and natural landscape will make the area more attractive.
It may also soften the outcry when the bulldozers move in.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
Well, valued readers, it certainly is good to be back at the helm of the Kivalliq News and home again in Rankin Inlet.
One disconcerting factor about my time away from Nunavut was the change in the type of questions I was bombarded with this summer from curious southerners.
Since I arrived in Rankin in 1998, the line of questioning I received every time I ventured south remained fairly constant.
I was asked about the temperatures, weather, storm severity, fishing conditions, what I did for fun away from work and a million hockey-related questions I won't bore you with the details of.
And, of course, there was always that one person who would ask me how many Inuit still live in iglus.
Hello? It's 2006!
But, I can honestly say, the questions thrown at me this summer had me longing for the days of, "You pay eight dollars for two litres of Pepsi?"
The questions I was asked this year illustrate the downside of a territory whose government and organizations gain most of their national media coverage by blasting away at the feds.
I was actually taken back by the anger I detected in some of the questions.
In fact, I was more than a little astounded by the number of people who asked me if anything good ever happens in Nunavut.
With my curiosity peaked and my feelings more than a little hurt, I started panning the Internet for Nunavut-related news articles and, I must confess, the vast majority of what turned up wasn't pretty, Northern-based media aside.
Now, keep in mind, most of the people who read/hear/watch these reports have little or no understanding of our territory other than what they come across in the media.
I quickly understood why many of them now have tainted views of Nunavut.
Most of what turned up revolved around sexual misconduct, violence, financial wrongdoing and an endless stream of we're not happy and/or we'll sue type of articles.
I'm sure many of you are reading this and wondering why I'm so surprised the evil media paints such a dark picture of Nunavut?
If it bleeds, it leads. Right?
Sometimes, yes. But there's more to it than that.
Yes, we have more than our share of challenges in the North with housing, health, education - the list goes on.
And, yes, we need our leaders to continue lobbying for improvements.
But, it's reached the point where somebody in our organizations is simply not doing their job.
A lot of great things have happened since division, but more is required to get that news out than simply inserting a press release and hitting the send button at 4:50 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.
The onus falls on us to show the rest of the country we're much more than their poor, misbehaving cousins.
Maybe it's time some of our well paid media-relations types spend a little less time shopping for traditional clothing to look the part, and start putting in the same level of effort to get the good news out that southern journalists do to obtain the bad.
Maybe then we can all go back to counting the antennas on top of iglus in preparation for the questions we face on our summer breaks.
Editorial Comment
Dez Loreen
Inuvik Drum
Kevin Campbell learned a hard lesson this week when his motor bike was not returned to him immediately after it was recovered by Inuvik RCMP officers.
Campbell got the short end of the stick alright, but the whole situation could have been avoided if he wrote down the serial number on this property.
Once the RCMP recovered the mini-bike, it was their job to ensure the property was returned to its rightful owner. While Campbell was sure the bike was his, he could not prove it.
This is something that we should all be accountable for. If you are willing to pay the cash for big ticket items that are easily moved like the bike, you should also be able to prove it's yours.
Sid Gray was right; his detachment was following protocols by holding the bike until they could verify that it was indeed his.
Although their tactics may seem outdrawn, the RCMP are here in the community to prevent crimes like theft.
Campbell said the RCMP are only out patrolling the streets during bar close, which is from 1 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. nightly.
I see them out on the streets at that time too, going up and down Mackenzie Road, waiting outside the bar to monitor the activities of bar hoppers.
I agree with Campbell that we should see more street patrols because it would deter mischief by the youth and remind us all that the Mounties are on the job.
Remember, these officers are the main law enforcement we have here, so we should let them know how we feel about their service, good or bad.
Another big topic is health care for students who are travelling south for schooling this fall.
Apparently, if you are a student, and do not follow the correct procedures, you could find yourself in a world of trouble if you need health coverage in the southern provinces.
While attending school, you may feel the urge to try out new things and be outgoing. Activities like snowboarding and ski vacations are all to common for students in the south, and why not? I mean, who doesn't want to fly down a tree-riddled hill at ridiculous speeds?
One of those class outings can end badly though, especially if you don't know how to properly downhill ski. You could end up in a cast and without health care, the costs would come out of your pocket.
Now, being someone who hasn't had to deal with the issue of health care outside the Territories, I'm quite new at this whole process. But I do see the importance of being prepared.
So, if you plan on going south, be sure to have your paperwork in order. And be safe while trying to ski down the double black diamond slope backwards, trying to impress that hot ski instructor.
Editorial Comment
Roxanna Thompson
Deh Cho Drum
One of the hidden secrets of the North, particularly the Deh Cho, seems to be the summers.
In the south, most of the knowledge around everything north of 60 is focused on the winters and the extreme temperatures that come with them. Seldom do you hear anyone mention that the summer temperatures can rival those of the south.
The reason for this may be because the people from the south who make it this far are so traumatized by insects that they forget everything else by the time they return home. This may sound a bit far-fetched but there may be some merit to the hypothesis.
Although bad spells seem to come and go, on most days you can head out your front door, walk a few metres and immediately pick up your own orbiting system of insects. Mosquitoes will buzz around your head followed by masses of tiny blackflies while bulldogs lumber in erratic patterns. If you happen to be safe within the comfort of a vehicle, you can see the swarms tagging along around people on foot.
If you think things are bad, at least you can take some comfort that you don't live in Nahanni Butte. Reports coming out of the community state that this has been the worst year many people have seen for insects. Early flooding left plenty of wet areas for bugs to take advantage of in their drive to reproduce.
But at least as humans we have some escape measures. We can hide inside, put on plenty of bug spray, wear bug jackets, make smoky fires or go high-tech with a bug zapper. You can almost take pity on the bison that had to be destroyed in Fort Providence. With so many insects trying to get a piece of them and no free hands to use for swatting, it's no wonder they took to the sandy playground for dust bath relief and didn't want to leave.
If anyone ever tells you that you are too small to make a difference, you only need to look as far as mosquitoes and blackflies to know it isn't true.
Weighing in at 1/25,000 of an ounce and only about half an inch long, mosquitoes hardly seem big enough to matter. Yet around the world, mosquito-borne diseases kill more people than any other single factor. In the North, at least, all we have to deal with are the itchy red bites.
One thing mosquitoes have going for them are their numbers. There are more than 2,500 species around the world. A single female can lay more than 200 eggs at a time and can average 1,000 to 3,000 eggs in a lifetime. Eggs only need four to seven days to reach adulthood and mosquitoes live for approximately two more weeks. If mosquitoes are bad, blackflies can be even worse in some ways.
There are more blackfly species in Canada than mosquitos with more than 100 recorded. Blackflies also have an annoying predilection for biting inaccessible places such as ankles and belt lines, leaving small, bloody welts.
But between all this swatting and complaining, there is one silver lining. At least the insects act as a sifting measure, leaving the Deh Cho summer to be enjoyed by the few and the hardy.
An error appeared in last Wednesday's edition of the Yellowknifer. In the news brief "TGIF success," half the net profit from the event will be donated to the Side Door Drop-in Centre and the Centre for Northern Families. We apologize for any confusion.