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It's not uncommon for government and corporations to only release capital costs of a project. The surprises typically come later, when the project is complete, and the cost of borrowing becomes part of the equation.

Such is the case with the Deh Cho Bridge, which has been pegged at a cost of $192 million for construction, up from the original cost estimate of $55 million, close to a decade ago.

NWT residents now have a former Yellowknifer, who goes by the moniker NorthernRaven, to thank for creating an online "bridge calculator" which extrapolates the numbers so people can get an idea of what the true cost of the bridge will be to taxpayers over the next 35 years.

A permanent span across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence has been talked about in the Northwest Territories for many years. Some feel strongly about a year-around connection to the south, so that Northerners are not at the mercy of Mother Nature each spring and winter, when ferry service can be interrupted for a few weeks during break-up and freeze-up.

Mining, construction and other activities can be disrupted, not to mention our supply of groceries and our own travels.

But all of that additional convenience for a few weeks a year will come at what cost? NorthernRaven, a computer programmer, said he couldn't find a decent summary of the cost of the Deh Cho Bridge "and got hooked into trying to figure it out."

Among the variables NorthernRaven looks at are the cost of borrowing, the anticipated opening date, estimated annual operating and maintenance costs, cost savings from not running the ferry each summer or constructing an ice road each winter, estimated costs of toll collection and the annual interest cost from construction cost overruns.

Then there is the matter of the estimated cost of borrowing. NorthernRaven projects the total repayable amount over the life of the loan, in 2011 dollars, to be around $297 million, meaning the Government of the NWT will have paid close to $132 million in interest - based on a previous $165 million project estimate - by the time the principal is repaid.

At the end of the day, the researcher projects the estimated final bill for the bridge will be in the neighbourhood of $357.9 million.

A spokesman for the territorial Department of Transportation said he "wouldn't quarrel" with the numbers as presented by NorthernRaven.

Further, Transportation Minister David Ramsay, once a vocal critic of the bridge project prior to becoming a cabinet minister, said NorthernRaven's total projected cost over the next 35 years "doesn't come as a surprise." He equated the bridge project to buying a house, which usually comes with a mortgage in which a bank charges interest.

Obviously, it's too late to turn back now. Construction has progressed to the point that the bridge spans the width of the river.

On the positive side, the bridge has an estimated lifespan of 75 years and the projected opening date of the bridge remains the fall of this year. When it does open, it will likely garner much fanfare and publicity, potentially enticing more tourists to come North to see what makes the territory spectacular.

One of the lessons to be learned from NorthernRaven's infatuation with calculating the full cost of the project is when government and corporations list the estimated capital cost of a project, taxpayers and shareholders will know that number is just a portion of the total amount of money that will need to be paid.

Now let's hope when we go to buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store after this autumn, we're not forced to pay a bridge tax.

OK, so maybe referring to the whole ridiculous affair as Chicken Little meets the Grinch is a bit over the top.

But let's be honest, for the past few years we've been bombarded with the message of impending doom by everyone from the man who would be American president, to a substantial chunk of the scientific community and just about every environmental group on the face of the planet.

Global warming, that is to say climate change, is a man-caused catastrophe in waiting that is on the verge of ending life as we know it on Earth, if not life itself.

The message grew steadily louder during 2011, as the International Polar Year grabbed worldwide headlines. One could scarcely look anywhere without seeing the image of a drowning, or starving, polar bear. And if that weren't enough, grinning killer whales were waiting for the last of the ice cover to melt away, any day now, so they could devour species to extinction, starting with narwhals in Baffin Bay.

It was enough to make one forget 2011 was also International Year of Forests.

Then again, fear of losing our forests is so 1990s.

Anyway, back to the Arctic.

Just when even the most sceptical among us were starting to buy into the fact maybe there is something to all this gloom, doom and despair, came the news the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab (PEARL) at Eureka will be all but frozen out of action on April 30. PEARL is the little atmospheric research and monitoring station that played a key role in discovering the largest ozone hole ever found over the Arctic this past year.

Apparently the group of university researchers that runs PEARL, known collectively as the Canadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change, hasn't been able to come up with the $1.5 million needed to run the station annually.

Most of the finger pointing has been aimed at the feds for pulling the purse strings shut on the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, which provided about threequarters of that $1.5 million.

I'm sure we can all agree the fact the funding ended at about the same time as International Polar Year was but sheer coincidence.

Now, as you may already have learned, at the same time PEARL was being deep-sixed by the feds, University of Toronto climate scientist Richard Peltier was being awarded the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, regarded as our country's premiere science and engineering prize.

I'm sure the good folks at the Canadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change are aware part of Peltier's prize is $1 million in research funding spread over the next five years from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Peltier's PEARL has a nice ring, don't you think?

So, we have a federal government that cuts funding to a supposedly important research station, at the height of our supposed climate change, as it repeatedly tells the nation of the supposed high importance it places on the Canadian Arctic.

The aroma surrounding that chain of logic makes this a PEARL even Capt. Jack Sparrow would be wary of.

On June 10, 2009 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada began its five-year mandate to bring to light the horrors of Canada's residential school era.

Part of the commission's objective was to record the painful stories of survivors, support them and their families and come forward with recommendations to assist with the healing of not only First Nation, Metis and Inuit people, but the nation as a whole.

Three years into its mission and after hearing heart-wrenching tales from thousands of Canadians, the commission has released its interim report and the results are what many expected.

Among the 20 recommendations are the establishment of a Northern mental health and healing centre and including materials regarding residential schools in public education.

Lawrence Norbert, a residential school survivor in Inuvik, told News/North he remembers work done in 1998 by the Grollier Hall Victim and Witness Support Service. At that time, recommendations regarding mental health and education also came forward, yet Norbert said those suggestions fell on deaf ears.

More than a decade later, we hope Canada is ready to listen and build upon the commission's interim report - even though that report is full of good intentions, it does not go far enough to address the needs of residential school survivors and the affected generations that have followed.

The commission describes the need for a healing centre as critical, yet recommends the facility be set up either in the NWT or Nunavut. One facility for both territories is not adequate. To be more effective the centres should be placed regionally -- at least two in each territory.

A person in Tuktoyaktuk should not be expected to travel to Iqaluit or someone in Grise Fiord to Yellowknife to undergo counselling.

In addition, the commission's eighth recommendation, which states all levels of government develop programs to assist with early childhood and parenting for families affected by residential schools is sorely needed. It will also go a long way toward solving the systemic social issues which are the legacy of the government- and church-run schools.

Residential schools deprived thousands of aboriginal people of their families, robbing them of the lessons many children learn from their parents, and, by extension, the ability for some of those children to grow up and raise their own children effectively.

Returning that knowledge to future generations will mean healthier children with a better sense of identity and self-esteem, subsequently helping to reduce the North's high rates of addictions and violence.

On another front, recommending that educational materials pertaining to residential schools and their impacts be included in schools is an excellent start, as is the call to develop public information campaigns.

Residential schools should be included in all history and social studies curricula on Canadian history. The teaching materials should also be developed in conjunction with aboriginal people and incorporate the stories told to the commission. Recognizing residential schools in our education system will help all Canadians better understand the long-standing effects on our society and might help rebuild our first people's trust in our school system.

We have high hopes for what the commission's recommendations can potentially achieve, but as Norbert said, some of these suggestions have been made in the past with no action. It is the responsibility of all Canadians to ensure the federal government follows through with the commission's recommendations, for the betterment of our nation.

Before the smoke had settled after the Feb. 26 fire in Iqaluit, which destroyed 22 student housing units, support started coming in for those who had lost their homes and possessions.

Clothing and miscellaneous goods were donated en masse, to the point where the need in Iqaluit was more than met, and further donations have been forwarded to other charities. Money poured in from every region of the territory, and indeed from across Canada and beyond. This was not just disposable income - charitable souls around the territory made sacrifices to help not only family and friends, but those they had never met.

The father of Grise Fiord's only Arctic Winter Games athlete will not see his son play badminton in Whitehorse as he's given the money he was going to use for airfare to the victims of the fire. Individuals have been raising money themselves, such as Iqaluit's Pierre Wolfe who collected pledges and walked the circumference of the capital for 24 hours to raise money for the victims. He walked in a loop for a full day not only as a tribute to the firefighters who fought the flames for hours upon hours, but also because "a circle is togetherness, and togetherness is healing."

As of late last week, more than $65,000 had been donated by businesses and organizations around Iqaluit and the territory, including $25,000 right off the bat from property owners Nunastar Properties.

Eighty-five people have been left without homes and without any clothes but the ones on their backs due to this devastating fire. However, Nunavut Arctic College has found temporary accommodations for all of them, and the Ukkivik residence gym was filled with clothing and necessities donated from all around Canada. The airlines chipped in to transport the goods.

Nunavut's winters are unforgiving, and aging infrastructure combined with high costs of setting up new homes puts the territory in a challenging position to make use of what it's got. Unfortunately, many old homes are susceptible to fire, and crises like the one on Feb. 26 remind us of the need for new housing and for a standardized building code across the territory. As common as that old refrain has become: that is going to take time.

Until then, we know Nunavummiut will come together in times of trouble and show compassion that should inspire not only each other, but those around the country.

A fire the likes of which the city has rarely seen has brought about a story of generosity that should not be overlooked.

Few people want Internet predators and terrorists to operate with impunity but it's hard to ignore warnings from the NWT's privacy commissioner about the Conservative government's Internet access bill, which she calls "scary stuff."

Elaine Keenan Bengts was one of 13 privacy commissioners - which, in Canada, is all of them - who signed a joint letter sent last year to William Baker, the deputy minister of Public Safety, expressing concern over Bill C-52, an early incarnation of Bill C-30, the so-called Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act.

If passed by Parliament, the act would allow any police officer to go to an Internet provider and open a person's Internet records without a warrant, as long as it takes place under "exceptional circumstances." Just what those exceptional circumstances might be has been the subject of considerable debate.

In their letter, the privacy commissioners argued there is "insufficient justification for the new powers; that other, less intrusive alternatives can be explored."

That was before Public Safety Minister Vic Toews drew his infamous line in the sand last month, blindly insisting in the House of Commons that anyone who is against the bill is "with the child pornographers."

Based on Toews' statement, we have to presume that would include Jennifer Stoddart, whom the Conservative government re-appointed as Canada's privacy commissioner in December 2010. She was a signatory of the March 9, 2011 letter to Baker, and as privacy commissioner, will be the official Toews tasks with ensuring police and other security officials are not overstepping their authority when investigating people's Internet accounts.

"The privacy commissioner may, on reasonable notice, conduct an audit of the practices of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Commissioner of Competition to ensure compliance," is how the bill reads.

Eleven years ago, a Yellowknife entrepreneur installed security cameras around the outside of a prominent landmark downtown. He thought he was providing a public service, having cameras trained on sidewalks and streets with the goal of capturing any crimes that might take place there.

"If you have nothing to hide you should feel relieved," the entrepreneur said, oblivious to the instinctive revulsion people naturally feel upon learning that strangers have been snooping on them without their consent.

George Radwanski, federal privacy commissioner at the time, weighed in, ruling that these particular security cameras in Yellowknife broke privacy rules and must come down - even though the entrepreneur had already done so weeks before.

The reaction from the public had been fierce and swift when word of the cameras got out. Most people are law-abiding and while they have nothing to hide, don't like being spied on - even if the stated aim is to make it easier to catch criminals.

That citizens across the country are reacting the same way to Bill C-30 is hardly a surprise, and no amount of bluster about siding with the pedophiles will change that.

Many families and individuals own at least one snowmobile. The snowmobiles vary as much as their usage, ranging from older, slower less-powerful machines to new, high-powered models.

Snowmobiles are used for touring, transportation, wood hauling, checking traplines, competing and just general winter entertainment. The fact snowmobiles are so ingrained into Deh Cho life is one reason residents of Fort Simpson should take notice of what the Village of Fort Simpson is doing.

The village council is in the midst of creating a new bylaw to regulate the use and operation of all-terrain vehicles including everything from four-wheelers to snowmobiles. The draft of the bylaw is still being altered but its draft version, which passed first and second reading on Feb. 20, included some potentially contentious changes.

The change likely to draw the most attention is the inclusion of age-based requirements for the usage of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) within municipal boundaries. In the first draft of the bylaw, no one under the age of 14 can drive an ATV. Any unaccompanied person under the age of 14 caught using an ATV could face a $500 fine and the vehicle could be seized for 15 days.

The bylaw calls for youths – between the ages of 14 and 16 – to be accompanied by an adult with at least five years experience operating an ATV. People ages 16 and older can use an ATV without restrictions. Members of the council are sure to soon be dealing with multiple objections to the age limits. The bylaw, however, has raised a good question. Have residents and parents become too complacent about the age at which youths are allowed to drive snowmobiles unaccompanied? It's not uncommon to see youths, sometimes groups of them, driving snowmobiles without an adult. Should this be an accepted practice?

Let's be frank, as snowmobiles get more and more powerful, the chance for serious injury increases. Hopefully parents are teaching their children safe snowmobile practices before they hand over the keys. However, children and teens being what they are, it is sometimes difficult to prevent them from riding away without adult supervision.

Many will argue it's not the village's place to impose an age limit on ATV use. Before too many objections are raised, residents and parents need to take a serious look at the current snowmobile and ATV practices and decide if they are stringent enough to keep the community's children safe. Snowmobiles are a part of life in the Deh Cho, but lax regulations shouldn't allow them to end a life either.

There are constant reminders from Skills Canada that there's a huge shortage of people working in skilled trades, but Inuvik is moving in the right direction to nurture the skills of today's youth and tomorrow's workers by hosting the annual skills competition for the fourth year and paving the way for skills to hit a stronger chord with youth at the new school next year.

The intense concentration and passion which existed at each event at the annual regional skills competition, touted as a one-day, Olympic-style competition, is proof that the interest in skilled trades is alive in the Beaufort Delta and Sahtu regions.

Some of the skills are offered at Samuel Hearne Secondary School, such as traditional sewing, cooking and baking. Next year, the focus of education will encompass trades and crafts even more with the facilities available at the new super school.

At a recent information session concerning the new facility, a portion of the high school's downstairs area was described as having an open, interior gathering space with rooms feeding onto that space, available to be used for different programs: practising music, cooking and baking, even a room dedicated to hairstyling and aesthetics. This creates a foundation for a broad spectrum of classes and offers an opportunity for the introduction and continuation of skilled trades in the high school alongside other academics and sports.

Watching a girl meaningfully place every blonde curl in place in an evening up-do; students' nimble fingers weave needles and thread through tough seal skins for a full day to create traditional mittens; and 16-year-old bakers whip, knead and mold cream and dough for four major projects over the course of six hours in the school's kitchen leaves no doubt as to the devotion and eagerness involved in each skill at the annual competition.

The nurturing of trades in the NWT paves a road for youth to stay and work in the territory. Offering a haven for skills to be worked over, developed and mastered sends the message that these skills and the careers they involve are worthwhile endeavours.

It is part of the school's mandate – to help form well-rounded people who don't have to look elsewhere to do something they love.

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