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The Nahanni National Park Reserve is a lot of things.

The park reserve is an UNESCO World Heritage site. It's a place of incredible beauty. It's an area with which the Dene have a long history.

It's also an experiment.

Nothing quite like this park has ever been done in Canada. A lot of the uniqueness stems from the proximity of the Prairie Creek Mine site to the park.

Owned by Canadian Zinc, the mine is currently located outside of the park. If the park expands, however, there's a fair chance the mine will find itself completely surrounded by the park.

Because a boundary hasn't been officially agreed on, it can't be said with certainty exactly how the mine and the park will or won't meet. If, however, the mine is surrounded by the park and if the mine is opened for production, the Nahanni National Park Reserve will have the dubious distinction of becoming the first national park in Canada to have a functioning mine within it.

Other businesses function inside existing national parks but most are related to tourism, said Doug Stewart, director-general of national parks for Parks Canada. There isn't even another example in Canada of a mine that could potentially be encompassed by a national park reserve. Strathcona Provincial Park on Vancouver Island in B.C. has an active mine inside of it but it doesn't count because it's a provincial, not a national park.

The question of whether a mine and a park can exist in close quarters has been the source of much of the news and controversy surrounding the park reserve. The latest round of questions was raised after Parks Canada and Canadian Zinc signed a memorandum of understanding.

The agreement outlines how the agency and the company will work to respect each other's interests and ensure an operating mine and an expanded park can co-exist.

It's the word "co-exist" that raises eyebrows and questions. Depending on who you're talking to you'll receive a very different opinion on whether co-existence is possible.

Conservation groups such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) have continually raised concerns about how the mine could affect the quality of the water that will be discharged into Prairie Creek as well as possible effects on the surrounding karst landscape. Dehcho First Nations has also had a long history of speaking against the continued existence of the mine.

Canadian Zinc has, unsurprisingly, argued there's no reason the mine and the park couldn't co-exist. By signing the MOU, Parks Canada has seemingly suggested they're seriously considering that option as well.

The unfolding and tangled story of the Nahanni National Park Reserve and the Prairie Creek Mine site will be one to follow. Everyone, after all, likes to find out how an experiment ends.

If you take a stroll through the NorthMart grocery aisles, you might be surprised to see handwritten labels in front of various items on the shelves.

The tags were made by interventionists of the Healthy Foods North program, to help people like you and me make smart decisions when buying food.

The tags will aid those people who are looking for the cereal with the most fibre, or the juices that are the best for growing youth.

With the help of trained professionals who want to ease our dietary problems, our communities can finally put aside sickness and ailments that are connected to bad diets.

Speaking on behalf of all pizza-loving, take-out-dwelling, ice cream-eating, cholesterol fiends like me, I think it's about time for a change.

Ever since I can remember, I've favoured the sweet taste of deep-fried potato fries to their boiled and mashed brethren.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'd choose a fully-balanced meal with all the trimmings over a greasy bag of take-out any day, but the latter is much easier to get.

Call me lazy, call me out of shape, but I've been enjoying the easy life of eating the food prepared by short-order cooks.

When I said that this is the time to change it all, I wasn't kidding.

Calling to order a pizza or chinese food every other day can get expensive.

Some people might have you think that eating in a restaurant is better than getting take-out, but they are one and the same.

The best option for anyone on a modest budget who wants to make a better meal for their buck should be shopping in the frozen foods aisle.

As most nutritionists will tell you, in our remote location, it is often the healthier choice to buy frozen foods.

They don't contain the same levels of sodium that canned food might have.

If you're cooking for a big bunch, it's also cheaper to buy bulk, whenever possible.

Last week, the organizers of the Healthy Foods North program got together to talk about where they are going next.

From what I've heard from them and seen in the stores, this initiative needs to be implemented in every community in the North.

Studies have been done on Northern diets over the past decades. Those studies have shown that families are not buying the healthiest foods and therefore are not eating as good as can be.

It might take some adjusting and a lot of getting used to, but making a few substitutions can be the key to a longer, healthier life.

So next time your loved one sends you out to the store for some buttery popcorn and root beer, bring back some rice crackers and a bottle of water. They might not thank you then, but they'll be around long enough to be thankful for decades to come.

Highway safety is an important matter, there's no doubt about it.

Who among us can honestly say they don't know anyone whose life was tragically cut short or forever changed due to the poor judgment of an inexperienced driver?

It was an effort to help reduce these sorts of traffic accidents that motivated the GNWT and its Department of Transportation to introduce graduated licensing in the summer of 2005.

Statistics show the scheme worked and forcing folks to spend two years behind the wheel before giving them a Class 5 licence resulted in an immediate drop in motor vehicle-related injuries.

In 2006, there were about 268 such injuries per 100,000 residents in the NWT according to Transport Canada. One year earlier, that number was roughly 433 and in 2004 it was 352.

So our highways are safer - credit where credit is due, kudos to Transportation. But what about communities where there are no highways?

What about places where youth and young adults are dreaming of job opportunities - not joyriding with their lead-footed friends? These folks are looking for ways to keep food in their youngsters' bellies and roofs over their heads, not fast times on the Ingraham Trail.

Dudley Johnson, who oversees the Sahtu region for Aurora College, says there are 20-40 people in each of the region's communities between the ages of 19 and 30 who haven't been able to begin potentially life-altering careers, due to their lack of a Class 5 licence.

With a minimum two-year probationary period, by the time these individuals are ready to work, who's to say the jobs will still be there awaiting them?

Think about that: 20-40 people per community works out to 100 to 200 people around the Sahtu caught in this crunch.

Assuming they found work that paid them an average of just $30,000 a year, that amounts to an extra $3 million to $6 million spread among the economies of Norman Wells, Tulita, Deline, Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake. Take that over the same two-year period and you're talking about up to $12 million that could be injected into the region - and it would not cost the government a dime.

The GNWT claims a willingness to co-operate on this matter and here's hoping the bureaucrats aren't just paying lip service to Johnson's suggestions.

Surely an adult taking an intensive training course could learn to drive a car safely within six months.

Graduated licensing exists to protect people from their own bad choices -- it shouldn't punish those trying to make responsible ones.

As for Johnson's other suggestion of introducing driver education programs in the schools, that's another winner. The government and educators alike have already seen the attendance success stories related to in-school breakfast programs and traditional on-the-land classes.

When you give kids a reason to go to school that they can relate to, they show up.

How many teenagers do you know who would skip school if it meant they wouldn't get a chance to slide behind the wheel for the first time?

Two lakes in Nunavut have been reclassified as waste dumps for mines. Tail Lake, near Newmont Mining's Doris North project near Cambridge Bay and the northwest arm of Second Portage Lake near Agnico-Eagle's Meadowbank project near Baker Lake.

First off, we think it is a questionable use of a regulation meant for reclassifying lakes used as waste areas in the bad old wild west days of mining.

These are not supposed to be the bad old wild west days of mining. And you can tell because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' decision to turn the lakes into dumps spins it as the most environmentally-friendly choice.

Meadowbank and Doris North are gold mining projects. Both intend to use cyanide, a deadly poison, in the ore extraction process. The tailings are to be treated to destroy the cyanide before they are dumped.

It is unsettling when our own Department of Fisheries and Oceans rules that instead of dumping waste into a land-based containment area that might, if breached, leach into the water table, it is better for the environment to dump waste directly into a lake. No land is wasted, the tailings are conveniently out of sight at the bottom of a lake, and it is undoubtedly the cheapest method

Natural water flow would be restored after the water in the tailings pond tested within acceptable limits.

But we think DFO is being overly optimistic when it states Doris North's Tail Lake tailings area "could be closed in such a way that a complete walk-away situation would be reached seven years after the end of mining, with no need for ongoing maintenance and no long-term potential for environmental effects."

Then there is the question of consultation.

Whether or not Inuit in Baker Lake and Cambridge Bay were adequately informed about the reclassification is debatable. Scientists and mining executives are fond of technical jargon, creating their own language barrier. They say cyanide and subaqueous when they mean poison and underwater.

The government of Nunavut and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association were in favour of the reclassification. The KIA has an Inuit Impact and Benefits Agreement with Agnico-Eagle, the details of which are secret. The KIA would also get money from the mining company under Article 20 of the land claims agreement as compensation for any damage to water.

Lakes are not only homes for fish. Wildlife drink from them. Insects breed in them, becoming food for birds and mammals. Migrating birds use them as rest stops. Bodies of water are essential to ecosystems in the Arctic.

But jobs are precious to Nunavut. The mines will create jobs in their construction and operation phases, as well as in closing and cleanup.

We hope the job of cleaning up after these mines does not keep Inuit employed for decades to come.

Well, valued readers, as you are reading this, I should be either chasing my oldest grandson around the yard in Charlottetown, P.E.I., or meeting my youngest grandson for the first time.

Either way, you can picture me grinning from ear to ear in your mind's eye.

As I enjoy a little rest and relaxation (yeah, right) on vacation, I leave Kivalliq News in the more-than-capable hands of Karen Mackenzie.

Karen comes to Rankin Inlet from Iqaluit, so she's more than familiar with all things Nunavut.

Rest assured, I will be returning to my office come September and I look forward to serving you all once again.

In the meantime, there have been a couple of occasions when I've used this space to trumpet the benefits bestowed upon youth who are active in the various sport programs in their communities.

As regular readers of the Kivalliq News know, I'm a big believer in the power of sports and the positive aspects that come with them.

Still, like everyone else, it's always more than a little nice when I hear or read someone of influence and integrity sharing my viewpoint.

Such was the case earlier this month when I came to the back page of the July 21 issue of Time magazine.

Much to my surprise, and extreme happiness, there was a full-page essay on the power of sport penned by one Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister from 1997-2007.

Anyone even vaguely familiar with journalism or writing in general, knows how important the first paragraph (the lead) is when it comes to encouraging readers to continue on with your story.

Blair started off by proclaiming, "Sport has the power to change the world..."

He followed that barnburner of an introduction by writing: "When a man like Nelson Mandela looks back over his life and, against the backdrop of all that he had to endure, pinpoints sport as a unique force for good, we should sit up and take notice."

It's pretty hard, if not impossible, to trump that when it comes to conveying the positive influence sport can have on our youth.

Not only does the sport of their choice provide them with a sense of belonging - so important in the North - it also instills within them the importance of being a team player, and teaches them how to set goals and then strive to achieve them.

The vast majority of athletes learn how to step onto the playing field and respect their opponent.

They may notice the colour of their opponent's jersey, but they rarely notice the colour of their skin - and they care even less.

Sport teaches youth no matter how hard you try, you will not always win.

It teaches them how to accept defeat graciously and learn from it, while still feeling pride in their effort and accomplishment. And, sport also encourages them to take pride in representing their teammates, school, community, territory and country.

I may never be Britain's prime minister, but I will always be willing to put my time where my opinion is when it comes to helping develop and run local sport programs for our youth to participate in.

And I'll see you good sports in September.