SAHTU - Land management agencies in Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake have teamed up to buy a helicopter as a way of bringing more money back to their communities.

The Yamoga Land Corporation in Fort Good Hope and the Colville Lake Behdzi Ahda' Renewable Resource Council bought a Bell 206 Longranger and in September finalized a leasing deal with Great Slave Helicopters to take in 65 per cent of its flight revenue.

They've set up a company together, K'asho Got'ine Helicopters, to manage the funds the Yellowknife-based chopper will generate on flights to and from exploration camps in the area.

Isidore Manuel, the programs manager for Yamoga, said the partners wanted to "have more ownership in business, be part of the economy and be more self-sufficient."

"Often we don't get anything out of these companies that come into the Sahtu, so that's another reason," he said.

The business deal will pay off and lead to more money for community programs such as organized hunts. Manuel said some people in Fort Good Hope are cutting back on snowmobiling out to hunting camps as they've noticed climate change causing more thin ice.

"It's not really safe," he said, "so they always ask for choppers."

The helicopter has been contracted in Nunavut this fall, working at Newmont's Hope Bay project.

Colville Lake band manager Joseph Kochon was away on a business trip last week, but his assistant, Barry Gully, said the band hasn't yet finalized any community projects that will be paid for with money from the deal with Great Slave Helicopters.

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