The next Northern frontier

The Northern Lights Cafe in Iqaluit may soon be on the move.

Owner Jeffrey Lem said that with the lease for his current location in the Royal Bank Building in downtown Iqaluit up by the end of August, he's setting his sights on a new, bigger location in which he'll be able to fit 150 seats, as opposed to the 52 seats currently offered in his cramped restaurant.

"I need a bigger site. I'm really busy here," said Lem.

Though there are several new buildings currently under construction whose owners Lem is talking to, he's being cautious about committing to any one location just get.

"Some of the buildings out here are only half done because the last (sealift) last year didn't make it in," he said.

Bye, bye CanTung, hello Mactung

North American Tungsten has decided to stop commercial production at its CanTung tungsten mine, located 240 miles west of Fort Liard, in October, the company announced last week.

The company is shifting focus to the Mactung deposit, which straddles the border between the NWT and Yukon. The company has claimed it is host to 33 million tonnes of high-grade ore - making it one of the world's largest undeveloped tungsten deposits.

According to a management discussion and analysis made earlier this year, "the project envisions an underground mine operating for a period of 11 years with the opportunity to add to the mine life an additional 17 years with further study of an open pit option."

Closed hotel to reopen in August

A hotel in Cape Dorset that was recently ordered to close plans to reopen next month after what the operations manager called "a complete renovation."

"We're going over the whole place just to make it a more pleasant place for guests to come to," said Cheryl Constantineau, though she remained mum on specific details.

The hotel has been closed for more than a month now after a sewage leak prompted the GN's Department of Health and Social Services to shut it down. According to a department statement, the hotel is required to repair the plumbing at the hotel.

Ace of base

Stephen Testart, base manager for Adlair Aviation in Cambridge Bay, recently began his two-month rotation in the community.

The base is managed year-round by two people, each of whom works two months on, two months off.

In his off-time, Testart visits family in his hometown of Kingston, Ont., but he said he always looks forward to returning to the North, especially during the summer.

"You get to meet so many kinds of interesting people," said Testart. "In the summer, I like to fish, observe wildlife. It's nice to be able to walk in weather that's not -40 degrees."

What little time he has to devote to his interests is well-earned and very much looked forward to.

"We're on call 24 hours a day, every day, so we're very busy, but it's very rewarding," he said.

Testart is joined by eight pilots who also work at the Cambridge Bay base.

New union agreement

The latest collective agreement for Union of Northern Workers members employed by the Government of the Northwest Territories was ratified on June 19. The new agreement will last for three years and result in pay increases of two per cent, 2.5 per cent and 2.75 per cent in each year of the agreement. The collective agreement specifies that mandatory leave days are to be converted to days with pay.