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Five years after a committee revamped the Official Languages Act to improve services to non-English speaking residents of the territory, people are still having trouble understanding basic healthcare in the capital.

Koonoo Muckpaloo, who has been living in Yellowknife for three years now, is one of these residents.

Last week she spoke out - through her son's translations - about the difficulty she has as an Inuktitut-speaking patient at Stanton Territorial Hospital.

Being understood when describing an ailment and understanding a doctor's prescribed course of action can literally be the difference between life and death.

Muckpaloo's language is recognized as one of the territory's 11 official languages, along with English, French, Chipewyan, Cree, Gwich'in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and Tlicho.

But there's obviously a problem when people like Muckpaloo need to bring their own translator along to the doctor's office.

The government has long been paying lip service to non-English speaking people.

Take francophones, for example. Though they are a very visible group in the city, it seems they have to fight for everything they want, from school facilities to transcripts from the legislative assembly.

Aboriginal groups could take a cue from the francophones' efforts. Aboriginal leaders, representing more than 5,000 people across the NWT who speak an aboriginal language, must take a more aggressive stance in demanding language rights. They should also start using words like "lawsuit" to make the government take action.

Tourism officials with the territorial government would be well-advised to make sure the cleanup of the Pensive Lakes canoe portage trail goes ahead next year.

The Somba K'e Paddling Society was all set to head out on the portage route last month to restore the trail after it was destroyed in a fire 10 years ago.

The paddling society had to cancel, however, after being told by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI) that the department would fund the trip but the group needed to acquire some insurance first.

This was no easy task. The group is insured for paddling events but few insurance brokers were willing to cover a trail cleanup project. When the group finally found a broker willing to insure their trip, the price tag was $2,000, taking up the lion's share of the funding ITI was willing to give them. Thus, the paddling society shelved its plans with a tentative maybe for next year.

ITI is correct when it says the Pensive Lakes trail is out of its jurisdiction but the department does advertise the trail in brochures and on its website. It seems somewhat misleading to advertise a canoe route as "a beautiful, unspoiled, wilderness route" when all the portage markers are burned out and deadfall litters the trails.

The department should pay up for insurance, take advantage of the goodwill of the volunteers and then we'll again have a trail that many people can enjoy.

If you look at a map of the proposed Edehzhie protected area, one of its most striking features is the interplay of land and water.

The Horn Plateau juts above the area and is topped with a number of lakes and ponds. Creeks and rivers run down the sides of the plateau like tendrils branching out in all directions to form a network of waterways.

Edehzhie encompasses the Horn River, Willow River, Rabbitskin Creek and Mills Lake. The process to protect this 25,230 square kilometre area is reaching a crucial point. A decision will soon be made on the suggested boundary for Edehzhie.

The question, of course, is how much land should be protected. For Jonas Antoine, the Dehcho First Nations' representative on the Edehzhie working group, the only concern is the water.

Edehzhie is special because of its abundance of fresh water, said Antoine. Water flows out of the area making it an ideal place to protect as a pristine habitat.

Antoine advocates taking a long-term view of the area and imagining what it will look like in 200 years if it's not protected. For Antoine, the water is more important than any non-renewable resources that might be extracted from the ground.

There are, however, indicators that Edehzhie might hold deposits of lead, zinc, uranium and oil and gas. As in many other cases in the Deh Cho, the issue comes down to where priorities lie.

On one side of the line are conservation values and the protection of the land. On the other side is resource development. Floating above the two is the question of what the Deh Cho will need in future years.

Similar questions have been raised with the expansion of the Nahanni National Park Reserve. Some parties have stated expanded boundaries will lock resources away from future development and hinder the economic growth of the Deh Cho.

If there was an easy formula to apply when making boundary decisions for protected areas, now would be the time to use it. The problem is there's no simple solution.

Non-renewable resources fuel economic development but only if they exist in the right conditions and can be easily accessed.

Protected areas are great places to visit and assure the continued survival of plants and animals but they aren't something you can take to the bank.

The amount of fresh water in Edehzhie throws another factor into the calculations.

Water is increasingly being viewed as a valuable resource. Given time, sources of freshwater might become as valuable as today's non-renewable resources. Protecting water now could be the equivalent of setting up a long-term savings account.

In cases like Edehzhie, a decision will be made and a boundary will be set. Some people will be pleased, some will be disappointed and some will be ambivalent.

The evidence of whether or not the right decision was made, however, will only be seen by future generations.

For years and years I've been saying that the youth of our town have been missing out on a great experience in media recording and editing.

Back in my days at Samuel Hearne, I remember wishing for a studio where I could play with video cameras and make short movies.

We had cameras, but there was no way to properly edit our footage and make music for the production.

Yeah, that school was lacking in areas where other Northern schools were flourishing.

Every year, I would take part in the Territorial Skills Competition, held by Skills Canada.

We would travel to Yellowknife for a few days and get to meet with like-minded youth from all over the Territories.

My field of expertise was web development and web design. I was a total nerd for HTML and loved working on a computer, because it was the one skill that was taught to me at Sam Hearne that I had a real interest in.

Once we got to Yellowknife, it was obvious that our little school in Inuvik was not offering the coolest classes I'd ever seen.

Sir John Franklin School in Yellowknife had a lab and video recording suite for student use. The school in Hay River also had a nice set-up for students to use for their projects.

Our poor school didn't offer a class like audio/video or anything of the like during my time.

Now, with the recent news of a state-of-the-art studio being planted in the Inuvik Youth Centre, this could mean great things for the people of Inuvik.

Ideally, this equipment will help the youth of today express themselves through unique and enticing media.

After spending years in an editing suite, recording sound and capturing video, I can tell you that it's a gruelling process, but once you're in the zone it feels great.

I want others in town to feel that same feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.

Now, it's all fine and dandy for a skilled team of professionals to come through town and teach some kids how to cut and drag some clips to make a timeline, but there is a more important lesson to be taught to the kids of our town first.

It's no revelation that the kids in this town have issues about respecting others' property. Maybe telling the kids that this equipment will be theirs will encourage them to care for the stuff.

I don't see the sense in giving another freebie to the same group of people in our community that wage war on our sense of safety and security.

You don't hear of 40-year-old men and women running rampant through schools, or defacing public property with tips on buying crack.

These are young people that are doing the most damage in our lives and we give another treat, in hopes that maybe they will come around.

I have nothing against the efforts of the visiting group of youth educators or the people who made the trip possible, like the Youth Centre.

I guess I just don't have the forgiving kind of heart or patience needed to keep giving to the void.

To all those youth who are out making a difference and slowly changing the minds of people like me, I applaud you.

You're fighting a good fight and hopefully you can make use of this equipment before it's abused.

A recent walk along the shore near Rankin Inlet turned up some of the most striking scenery I've seen in my life, not to mention a few sluggish siksiks and a couple of the gnarled, abandoned vehicles I've learned are so ubiquitous to Nunavut's landscape.

There's only been about a 30 per cent increase in personal vehicles in the territory since its inception, according to the annual Canadian Vehicle Survey. Surprisingly low, given that every year sealift seems to bring more into each community.

I guess the problem is the vehicles rarely have anything to do once they've outlived their usefulness but to serve their final decaying days as targets for sharpshooters or angry teens with baseball bats and stones.

Once they're here, they're very difficult to dispose of. The cost of freight makes their export prohibitively expensive (unless, as in Iqaluit's case, some private company comes along to take them away), and crushing requires expensive equipment.

So here they stay, adding more weight to our already overburdened landfills, and leaking toxins into the earth as they degrade.

They leave side streets looking more like bombed-out Bosnia than rural Canada, and their mere neglected presence seems to attract more litter like a magnet.

But besides cluttering the landscape in their afterlife, the influx of motor vehicles is causing other, more subtle, changes as well.

Cars tend to create their own culture, one where neighbours speed by instead of pausing to say hello, and teenaged social lives revolve around "going up the road."

One of the most jarring differences I discovered upon landing in Rankin was that cars don't stop for you here as a pedestrian, you stop for them. I even saw an elder nearly sideswiped by a distracted driver in front of Northern the other day.

The mayor of one small hamlet in the region told me this week his council would soon have to start looking at ways to deal with increased vehicles, perhaps with more stop signs or posted speed limits. Extra traffic was changing the way people moved around the community, and without the proper regulations in place it was becoming unsafe.

Finally, they require things like smooth roads and parking spaces, which require other things, like planning, space and money.

If a recent debate over the asphalt millings newly-laid on Rankin's roads is any indication, traffic-related issues are going to continue to suck up more resources and time in all our communities from here on in.

- Darrell Greer, the regular editor of the Kivalliq News, returns later this month