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News Briefs: Monday, April 15, 2013
Hearings start on Wildlife Act
The Legislative Assembly's Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure has begun its public hearings on a proposed new Wildlife Act.
The hearings began in Tsiigehtchic on April 10.
The upcoming hearings will be held in Dettah (April 17), Hay River (April 18), Fort Simpson (May 13), Nahanni Butte (May 14), Fort Providence (May 15), Behchoko (May 16), Inuvik (June 10), Sachs Harbour (June 11), Yellowknife (June 12) and Fort Smith (June 13).
- Paul Bickford
Accident on winter road
A small car and a half-ton truck collided on the Behchoko-to-Whati winter road near the Wekweeti junction on April 5. Emergency medical services from Behchoko transported three occupants of the car to Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife for medical treatment.The driver of the car suffered minor injuries.
The RCMP stated slippery road conditions are believed to have been a contributing factor in accident, but alcohol wasn't a factor.
The police are advising drivers to use extra caution on the winter road because, with temperatures rising at this time of year, snow on the road is becoming slippery.
- Paul Bickford
Federal auditor in town
Ronnie Campbell, assistant auditor general, will be in Yellowknife on April 16 and 17 for meetings regarding a report on income security programs looked after by the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment (ECE).
The department spends about $30 million a year on programs, such as the income assistance, student financial assistance, child care user subsidy, and the senior home heating subsidy. Public meetings will begin at 1:30 p.m. on April 16 on the second floor of the legislative assembly.
- Sarah Ladik
Literacy award nominations open
NWT residents have an opportunity to nominate educators, youth learners and organizations for a literacy award.
Nominations for the 2013 Ministerial Literacy Awards are open until May 15. The awards honour literacy achievements across the territory.
There are three categories to the award, one for educators who have shown an outstanding dedication to literacy; one for youth learners, aged 16 to 25, who have shown dedication to developing their own literacy and have been role models for other youth; and one category for organizations that have advocated for literacy.
- Roxanna Thompson
Gateway Jamboree organizing underway
Enterprise
The Enterprise Gateway Jamboree Society will hold an organizational meeting this week to continue planning for this summer's music festival. The meeting will be held on April 17, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at the Enterprise Community Centre.
Winnie Cadieux, vice-president of the society, said there has already been one organizational meeting and others will be held about once a month leading up to the festival in August.
Cadieux said the society would welcome more volunteers to help prepare for the event.
The 15th annual Gateway Jamboree will be held on Aug. 10.
- Paul Bickford
Housing authority seeks directors for board
Thebacha/Fort Smith
The Fort Smith Housing Authority is seeking applications from individuals interested in filling three member-at-large positions on its board of directors.
The term of office will be a minimum of one year.
Anyone interested in applying will be required to submit a one-page personal history.
The application deadline is 3 p.m. on April 17.
- Paul Bickford
Spring planting in progress
Tsiigehtchic/Arctic Red River
Tsiigehtchic residents were invited to attend a gardening workshop today on April 15.
Gene Hachey, director of agriculture, agri-foods, and commercial wildlife development for the GNWT, will be help hopeful gardeners get their plots ready for spring planting, answer any questions about food production, and generally reassure participants in all their gardening concerns.
"People get really anxious about whether they're doing things right," Hachey said. "I always tell them, 'You and the seed have one thing in common: the seed wants to grow and you want it to grow, so don't over-think it.'"
Hachey will also be visiting Fort McPherson on April 16 and Tuktoyaktuk on April 18. He said he is working on making contacts in Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, and Ulukhaktok to offer workshops in those communities in the future.
- Sarah Ladik
School exchange crosses cultures
Telit'Zheh/Fort McPherson
Fort McPherson is hosting 16 students from Nelson, B.C., this week as part of a YMCA Youth Exchange 2013 program.
Chief Julius School principal Shirley Snowshoe said the program pairs a southern school with a Northern one to expose students to multiple cultures. Sixteen students from Fort McPherson visited Nelson in mid-February and are now hosting their counterparts for various activities, including dogsledding in Inuvik on April 9, and camping with local families later in the week.
"We want to thank the YMCA for picking us for this program," Snowshoe said. "It gives people from two cultures a chance to learn from each other."
- Sarah Ladik
Heritage fair and job fair at Deninu School
Deninu Ku'e/Fort Resolution
A heritage fair and a job fair will be held at Fort Resolution's Deninu School on April 18.
The heritage fair will feature project displays from students in grades 2 to 9. The projects will cover such subjects as NWT history, trapping, animals of the North and aboriginal languages.
Judging of the projects, which will be displayed at various locations throughout the school, will take place in the morning. In the afternoon, the displays can be viewed by all students and community members.
The job fair, which will take place in the school's gym, is focused on students in grades 6 to 12. Young adults who may not be attending school are also invited to learn about career opportunities.
The job fair will feature booths by organizations from Yellowknife, Fort Smith, Hay River and Fort Resolution. Those organizations include the RCMP, De Beers Canada, the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Aurora College and others.
The combined events will take place at the school from noon to 3 p.m., including a community lunch from noon to 1 p.m.
There will also be an auction featuring the work of student artists.
- Paul Bickford
Women's shelter offers sewing courses
Tuktoyaktuk
The Aimayunga Women's Emergency Foster Care Shelter is hosting a sewing and traditional crafts workshop on April 15 through 18.
Program administrator Darlene Gruben said this month's installment had to be split into two groups. The first were held April 8 to April 11, because 26 women registered for courses in parka-making with instructors Brenda Kimiksana and Bertha Chicksi. Material is provided but participants have to bring their own fur.
Gruben said women who attended a fur-sewing class offered in March really enjoyed it and that the shelter will try to put on sewing workshops every month, each with a different focus. The next class will most likely be in sewing with fur, offered to women aged 50 and older, to make use of leftover materials from the workshop held in March.
- Sarah Ladik
Aurora college visits with firearms accreditation
Ikaahuk/Sachs Harbour
Sachs Harbour hosted a firearm acquisition certificate course in partnership with Aurora College April 9 and 10.
Christine Noel, acting manager at the local community corporation, said five people were taking the two-day course and would write the exam at the end, allowing them to acquire firearms as well as ammunition. The course only happens once or twice a year, she said, so residents should take the opportunity to get certified when the instructors come to town.
- Sarah Ladik
Petooloosie pleads guilty to killing uncle
Iqaluit
Alec Petooloosie appeared in court last week where he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his uncle, Matthew Petooloosie.
Petooloosie was arrested Jan. 28, 2012 and charged with manslaughter in the December 2011 death of his uncle, who was found dead in Iqaluit's 300-block apartment in the middle of the night.
At the time, the death was being investigated as intentional. RCMP Chief Supt. Steve McVarnock said police conducted an "extensive investigation" with support resources from Nunavut, Ontario, Quebec and Alberta.
Petooloosie will face sentencing this November. Until then, he will remain in custody at the Baffin Correctional Centre.
- Peter Worden
High wind hits hamlet
Pangnirtung/Panniqtuuq
Strong wind is nothing new to Pangnirtuurmiut, but last week wind speeds reached upwards of 120 km/h, according to Environment Canada reports for April 7.
"It was just a little breeze by Pang standards," joked SAO Ron Mongeau, adding that damage around the breezy hamlet was limited to scattered debris and maybe a broken window or two. "There's always damage. When you hit 120 there's always going to be damage."
The Sunday windstorm was nothing compared to a previous one in 1978, said Mongeau, which took five houses and the Hudson Bay store and blew them down the fiord.
"We get some real good ones," he said.
The wind calmed down the following day and it was beautiful weather for the hamlet's 41st anniversary on April 8.
- Peter Worden
Travellers to national park cautioned
Pangnirtung/Panniqtuuq
Parks Canada officials issued a travel advisory April 11 for anyone planning a visit to Auyuittuq National Park this week.
The popular stomping ground for hikers, campers and adventure tourists is experiencing unseasonably warm weather.
Visitors are cautioned the route on Pangnirtung fjord over sea ice between town and the south entry to Akshayuk Pass is unstable.
Access will still be possible on foot overland, but snow machine travel with an outfitter or ski travel on the ice may soon be impossible, stated the advisory.
Visitors should contact the park office to check on ice conditions and be prepared to travel an additional 31 km to enter the park from Pangnirtung.
"This advisory is for the period of time starting now and likely ending by the end of May when travel conditions to and from the park, due to ice break-up and snow melt, have returned to a seasonal normal," said Garry Enns, external relations manager with Environment Canada, in an e-mail.
- Peter Worden
Long time, no tuktu
Mittimatalik/Pond Inlet
After almost a decade it seems caribou herds may be coming back around to the Pond Inlet-area.
Herds are currently located in between Clyde River and Pond Inlet and in and around the Mary River area, according to Nancy Kublu at the Hunters and Trappers Organization (HTO). Last week the HTO purchased tuktu (caribou meat) from one hunter who shot two animals near the hamlet.
"We hardly have caribou here," said Kublu. "We usually have to buy caribou from out of town and resell it to local people."
The meat, she said, is so rare locally that it typically sells in a matter of minutes.
Caribou herd migrations work on long cycles - often of a decade or more - as the animals follow food sources far away, but Kublu hopes the recent hunt is a sign of more caribou to come around town.
"The caribou are coming here very slowly," she said.
- Peter Worden
Drum dancing festival
Kugaaruk/Pelly Bay
Lots of music and dancing is in store for many Kugaaruk residents as the community is hosting a drum dancing and square dancing festival this week.
Performers from Repulse Bay, Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak will be in Kugaaruk from April 8 to 12 to participate in the event, said Michael Bartley, principal at Kugaaruk School. Drum dancers will perform at the school gym from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. followed by square dancing until midnight, he added. Bartley said the community event is about sharing culture and having a good time.
"I think it was 20 qamutiks came in on the weekend from Repulse (Bay). There is a lot of people," said Bartley.
- Jeanne Gagnon
Weekly land trips
Uqsuqtuuq/Gjoa Haven
Gjoa Haven's Qiqirtaq Ilihakvik is offering weekly land trips until the end of the school year.
Principal Paul Cipriano said students must have 80 per cent attendance for the week to participate in the land trip every Wednesday.
"Just to give them a touch of the outdoor cultural learning," he said.
The students will travel to a lake two hours north of the community to fish and hunt caribou, if they are lucky, said Louie Kamookak, a student support teacher at the high school. Students might also learn how to build igluit.
- Jeanne Gagnon
Visiting musician
Kugluktuk/Coppermine
Music will fill the halls of the high school as a musician was visiting the community last week.
Manitoba musician Nathan Halcrow was scheduled to lead guitar and violin lessons for Kugluktuk High School students from April 8 to 12 and perform, said school principal Gary Kennedy. This is the third time Halcrow has visited the community but the first time this school year, he added.
"Lots of students have signed up," said Kennedy, prior to Halcrow's visit.
- Jeanne Gagnon
Mace tour
Iglulik and Sanirajak/Hall Beach
The mace of the Nunavut legislative assembly was scheduled to tour Hall Beach, Iglulik and Arctic Bay last week.
Speaker Hunter Tootoo was set to travel to Hall Beach on April 9, then Iglulik and Arctic Bay, showing the mace to the communities, explaining how it was made, its significance and its history.
Tracy Laine, Hall Beach's acting senior administrative officer, said it will be first time she sees the mace.
"I am actually looking forward to going and seeing it myself. I never knew what it was until I had it described to me," she said.
Ataguttaaluk High School will host an assembly, said vice-principal Patricia Tidd.
"The kids know but they're not all pumped," she said.
- Jeanne Gagnon
Numerous narwhal spotted
Panniqtuuq/Pangnirtung
Warmer than average seasonal temperatures and open water in the Cumberland Sound has made for a spate of recent narwhal sightings. Local hunters are keen to harvest narwhal but as of April 9 none had been hunted.
"They've been seeing them every day but due to ice they haven't had a chance to get a good shot at it," said Jackie Maniapik with the hunters and trappers organization, adding that with broken ice drifting back and forth it has made hunting difficult.
"They're not accessible by snowmobile so they can't approach them because they don't have access. If there wasn't any ice, chances are they would have harvested quite a few by now."
Last week a few hunters were out at popular spots around the sound waiting for a chance to hunt.
"They're definitely going to harvest some for sure," said Maniapik.
All narwhal harvested require a kill tag from the Hunters and Trappers Organization.
- Peter Worden
Easter feasting
Ausuittuq/Grise Fiord
It was back to normal in Grise Fiord last week after a fun-filled Easter holiday.
The hamlet held lots of games and hosted an Easter Sunday potluck dinner, while school children held a cooking class for the community.
"They did an excellent job. There was lots of food to be had," said Marty Kuluguqtuq, the senior administrative officer for the hamlet. On Easter Monday the community played games and held an Easter egg hunt.
"All in all, there was lots of Easter chocolate in town," he said.
- Peter Worden
Exchange draws near
Kangiqliniq/Rankin Inlet
Grade 7 and Grade 8 students at Maani Ulujuk Ilinniarvik (MUI) in Rankin Inlet are eagerly anticipating the arrival of a group of exchange students from Southampton, Ont., later this month.
A full slate of activities awaits the Ontario youths in Rankin, with the MUI students reciprocating with a visit to their community the following month.
- Darrell Greer
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News desk 
