SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - When Peter Bannon came North in June 1976, he thought he'd only be here for a couple of years at most. Now, 33 years later, he's coming out of retirement in Yellowknife to serve on the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board.

Peter Bannon was recently appointed to the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board after more than 30 years living in the North. - photo courtesy of Sarah Bannon

The minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada announced Bannon's appointment to the board on June 8.

He first arrived in the capital on a transfer from St. Johns NL., as a drill ship inspector with Environment Canada. He had accepted the job "sight unseen".

"I arrived right about this time of the year in June, and it was probably one of the best summers I can remember," said the 56-year-old, who's originally from southern Ontario. "I enjoyed it right away and then the work turned out to be very interesting as well."

The job took him to Inuvik in the summers, where he moved as a newlywed with his wife, Jennifer Peyton, in 1979. He would spend the next three decades as a public servant in the NWT and Nunavut, moving his environmental management career into the policy-forming side of government. His resume is a long one - he was a water resources officer with the Department of Indian Affairs in Iqaluit, a GNWT representative for the implementation of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, and retired two years ago as executive director of the GNWT's office of devolution.

"What I found about working up in the Northwest Territories was you could really see the results of your work and see how you could even influence policy," he said, adding that the new position on the board "gives me a chance to get back to my roots, I guess, the original work I do in environmental protection, environmental management - that's what I look forward to most."

But what really struck him about the North when he first arrived, he said, was the people.

"Not only the people I worked with, but the people I knew in the communities - they were all hardworking people, dedicated to what they were doing," Bannon said. "Sometimes when you try to put government and that together it doesn't seem to make much sense, some people would say, but that's been my experience."

And that's part of the reason he and his wife stayed here to raise their two children, Sarah and Joseph. Now that Bannon calls Yellowknife home, he said he still cherishes the easy pace of Northern towns where "you can walk to work and still walk home for lunch."

"We haven't lived in Iqaluit for 20 years, but you can still walk down the street and still run into people that you know. And that's the same with Inuvik, too," he said.

"There's many interesting people up here to meet."