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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - NWT boaters don't need licences - at least not for the foreseeable future.

Pietro De Bastiani, a boating instructor with the Great Slave Yacht Club in Yellowknife, said he received numerous calls from worried boaters after a Transport Canada advertisement appeared in Yellowknifer on March 27, warning them they will require a pleasure craft operator card by Sept. 15 to legally drive a boat.

"People who are not members of the yacht club have been calling, basically going, 'we have to have it,'" said De Bastiani. "I have to keep reassuring people."

Residents of the NWT and Nunavut are exempt from requiring an operator's card starting this fall. Yukon boaters, however - like those in the rest of Canada - are not.

Maryse Durette, a spokesperson for Transport Canada, said the March 27 ad appeared in newspapers across the country, and were placed in territorial publications as a means of raising awareness about boater safety.

"We encourage all recreational boaters to take the course and obtain the pleasure craft operator card."

She said there are currently no plans to make the operator cards mandatory in the NWT and Nunavut, but residents here will need one if they intend to operate a boat south of the 60th parallel.