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Hockey has always been big in the North. There is no shortage of teams from the minor to senior levels throughout the NWT and Nunavut. A multitude of territorial tournaments and competitions down south ranging from regional-level to national-level events have also provided ample opportunity to showcase our hockey talent.

The natural evolution of that hockey fever peaked this year with the creation of the First Air Northern Hockey Challenge.

At the beginning some might have been skeptical about how the new level of hockey would fare considering the distance between teams and the fact they were based in communities with vastly different player pools to choose from. The odds, initially, seemed stacked in the favour of Yellowknife which had three or four times the population to choose its players from compared to Inuvik and Hay River. The fear was the capital city's player-pool advantage would mean an easy road to the finals and regular season play supported that notion as the Yellowknife First Air Flyers finished with a dominating record of six wins, no losses and two ties. However, two of those wins over the Hay River Huskies were decided by one and two goals.

While the Inuvik Delta Stars was the weakest of the three teams, it managed to stay close in its games against Hay River, and even came away with a tie against the Huskies one night.

The success of the Northern Hockey Challenge can be gauged three ways. The first is the fact the players and coaches involved all commented on the calibre of play and professionalism in which the event was handled. Second, fans packed arenas to cheer on their home squads and rivalries were developed adding to the excitement. Third, and probably most important, was the fact the calibre of play improved throughout the eight-game season.

While clearly the favourites in the Western Division final, Yellowknife's road to the championship game was not the cakewalk some expected, despite the Huskies going down two games to start the best-of-five series.

The team demonstrated grit and heart to battle back keeping the series alive by defeating Yellowknife in its own rink before bringing the series back to Hay River. Another victory meant an all-deciding game five that packed the Hay River arena. That final game was a fast-paced duel decided by an early overtime goal by the Flyers.

With the final between the Flyers and either Rankin Inlet or Iqaluit still to come, we can safely deem the first season a success and predict the calibre of play to only improve.

Sponsor First Air took a gamble when it decided to come on board. For the North's devoted hockey fans, First Air scored a hat trick.

It might have been an error but the recent accidental pricing of a head of romaine lettuce in Paulatuk has once again highlighted the predicament Northerners face when it comes to food security. Although the $11 price was a mistake, the correct price of $8 for some leafy greens doesn't come as much of a relief. In Yellowknife the same product would sell for approximately $2.

Nutrition North, despite the government's continued claims of success, has done little to make food affordable in our most remote communities. What many government talking heads seem not to grasp is that cheaper-than-before does not necessarily translate into equitable or affordable. Unfortunately, and understandably due to our location, we continue to rely on the south and southern-based businesses seeking to make a profit for our food.

It's time to find ways to cut those strings and release ourselves from the merciless whims of profiteers.

The best way to achieve that goal is to begin providing our own food. Agriculture can and does work in the North. A potato farm in Norman Wells that manages to sell its produce for cheaper than what it is shipped in for is proof of that.

Perhaps with the help of the newly-established Northern Farm Training Institute an opportunity to establish commercial greenhouses across the territory will present itself. Such a prospect be a welcome one and help with more than just food costs. It will also mean a jobs for the construction industry during the building phase and then employment for communities involved to staff the operation.

We can't wait for government to solve a problem it obviously cares little about; it's time we grow our own solutions.

When checking your news feed or updating your profile on Facebook, you run the risk of making information public you might not want certain people to see, or seeing something you don't want to see.

Last week, former Arctic Bay mayor Niore Iqalukjuak urged hamlet residents to be careful when posting about recent deaths before the deceased's family had all been notified ("Finding out through Facebook," April 8). The risk here, which also confronts newspaper reporters when reporting on deaths, is that someone might find out a loved one has died in a sudden, perhaps insensitive manner. Hearing the news from a trusted individual, who can then comfort the person in their grief, is a healthier way for this to happen.

The caution one must use on the web extends further, however. What one might post in high school, be it pictures containing drugs and alcohol or crude status updates, might be visible to potential employers, potential friends or family - anyone with internet access.

Individuals in Canada and abroad have found themselves in trouble with the law for posts perceived as threats. An Ottawa man was brought to court by the Canada Revenue Agency in 2010 over whether he was a business's employee, as he stated in his tax returns, or self-employed, as his Facebook profile declared.

It's important to understand your social media privacy settings and be conservative with what you post on the Internet, lest you hurt someone inadvertently or have a post come back to haunt you when you least expect it.

As Nunavut heads toward a territorial election this fall, 27 unsuccessful candidates from 2008's election are barred from running because they did not submit fully complete campaign donation disclosures.

Such disclosures are critical to maintaining honest, transparent politics. Although it may be a case of candidates not wanting to file tedious paperwork for an election they didn't win, rather than malicious attempts at concealing who was feeding their purse, it's rightly a black mark on their records.

The names are public and were printed in last week's Nunavut News/North ("Candidates barred from next election," April 8).

If they decide to run in the 2017 territorial election, when they will once again be eligible, voters should question them on this incident.

At root could be either maliciousness or laziness. Neither are qualities the public should expect from someone running for office.

There's a new sheriff in town, and this one doesn't at all see eye-to-eye with the previous city council when it comes to the full-cost recovery bylaw on residential homes approved in 2010.

When Homes North asked for a $3.8 million subsidy in October of 2011 to help pay for infrastructure such as water and sewer, power lines, and asphalt at its 178-lot Block 501 property at Kam Lake, Yellowknifer argued council had no choice but to reject it because they were already committed to full-cost recovery. Proponents argue, and not without some justification, that it is not fair to subsidize residential lots with taxpayers' money.

Residential developments in Yellowknife have long been built with financial help from the city, but when Condominium builders Highstreet Ventures Inc. began construction on its Copper Sky and Niven Heights projects in 2010 they were under the new rules. And rules are rules. It would have been highly hypocritical of council to offer Homes North a break not given to other developers only a year after deciding subsidies were no longer acceptable.

But last fall's municipal election has created a new playing field. Voters in their wisdom elected a city council including four municipal politicians who were involved in one way or another in their day jobs with the home retail and construction industry -- Couns. Cory Vanthuyne, Adrian Bell, Niels Konge and Phil Moon Son.

Most of this new council appears not to support full-cost recovery on the basis that it makes it more difficult to get shovels in the ground and adds to the already high cost of buying a home in this city. It could also be argued that while it would have been the height of hypocrisy for the previous council to award a subsidy to Homes North when Highstreet didn't get one, the optics were already bad after council in 2008 had offered a 12 per cent subsidy on 31 phase VII lots at Niven Lake that the city itself had put up for sale.

This council appears set to do away with full-cost recovery and offer Homes North a 12 per cent subsidy on Block 501. Fair enough. Many of them campaigned against it during the election.

We can only hope this time it remains consistent.

The big melt has begun, and no doubt we won't like everything we see once the snow is gone.

Melting snow has revealed all sorts of nasty surprises, ranging from discarded garbage, dog poop to broken bottles.

Perhaps more distressing, however, was the recent discovery by a Yellowknife family of a metal snare tightly wound around the throat of their pet black Labrador dog. The animal somehow got caught in the trap in the Kam Lake area of the city after it was let outside. Dr. Michael Hughes, the veterinarian who broke one pair of snippers while freeing the young dog from the metal snare, said the cherished pet could have died from the ordeal and suggested the incident should raise awareness about dangers hidden in the bush.

While setting traps in the city is against the law, there are people foolish enough to set them, including a man who set a quick-kill trap in a wooded area near Sir John Franklin High School several years ago with the intention of protecting his dog from foxes. Instead, it caught the neighbour's pet dog, who died from its head injuries.

The change of seasons is welcome in the North. Longer days, warmer temperatures and the melting snow encourage people to spend more time outdoors. We suggest residents, especially families with children and pets, to be aware that danger lurks in the less-travelled areas and to be vigilant while embarking on adventures.

Weather, it's one of the ties that bind.

Casual conversations between people who don't know each other will often involve a mention of the weather. It's an easy topic to grasp because weather affects everyone and, therefore, everyone can manage at least a sentence or two about the current state of things outdoors.

For more involved conversations, the current weather often gets compared to the memory of weather past. For example, "Look at that snow coming down out there, have you ever seen a snowstorm like this in April?" Openings like this are generally grasped by someone who is just waiting to say something like, "What? This is nothing, I remember this one time, back in...", and then suddenly you are listening to a novella-length tale of the largest snowstorm that ever was – at least according to the teller.

That's the thing about weather, record-size fish catches and other important events in a person's life: somehow over time the memory becomes more dramatic. Winters get colder, fish get bigger and trips get more exciting.

This winter in the Deh Cho, however, needs little exaggeration. A look at the data gathered at weather stations shows that the region's residents legitimately have something to brag about.

It has, without a doubt, snowed a lot in the Deh Cho this year.

Fort Simpson residents have the ultimate bragging rights because well-established records show that the village received 280 cm of snow throughout the winter, 24 cm more than the previous record set in 1998-99, with the next snowiest winter dating back to 1916-17.

People who were out shovelling would have gotten a workout in February when 50.4 cm of snow fell from the sky.

Other Deh Cho communities may have gotten even more snow throughout the winter, although it is hard to tell because of a lack of data.

Forevermore, when a Deh Cho resident is at the post office, or bar or gas station, and someone starts in about the weather, they will be able to describe the great, white winter of 2012-2013.

Of course, as time passes and memories grow more vague, the amount of snow that fell this winter will truly reach epic proportions. It will become the winter where people stepped off of trails into snow so deep they were never seen again, or maybe it will be the winter people developed arms like Popeye from all the shovelling they did.

It can be a difficult thing to straddle the line between tradition and progress. We saw some evidence of that over the weekend at the Muskrat Jamboree.

On the afternoon of April 16 the Mary Firth Memorial race had to be cancelled due to a lack of participants. This was one of two dogsled races with traditional toboggans rather than an open class race using modern basket sleds.

On April 8, the Isaac Simon Memorial race was converted to an open-class race and four teams entered.

I heard there could be problems with the races about a month ago when a representative of the local sledders mentioned they were at loggerheads with the organizing committee over the races.

The dog races are one of the major attractions of the jamboree season, along with snowmobile races. So I found the wrangling over such a relatively minor issue about the type of dogsled to be almost laughable.

With the cancellation of the Mary Firth race and the last minute changes to the Isaac Simon race, I'm not laughing.

I don't have a huge background in dogsledding. What I know about running dogs I learned from a friend who began with Eskimo sled dogs, a breed born and bred here in the North. That friend also ran the dogs in more or less traditional style. He had no particular interest in racing. Instead he ran commercial tours.

I pay some attention to racing, but I don't have a huge interest in it or the mixed-breed huskies that now dominate it. My interests in sledding are, frankly, traditional.

I don't understand why the sledders are resisting the chance to run in traditional races. Some of these people race only in the jamborees, which means they have advance warning some of the races will be traditional. Surely racing traditionally a handful of times over the course of a long winter season isn't going to be a huge burden for them.

That means if they don't have the equipment, they certainly have a chance to acquire it ahead of time.

As for the jamboree organizers, perhaps it's time to re-think the way the registration process is carried out. If a minimum number of teams is needed, establish a cutoff time a week or two ahead. Cancel it ahead of time if the minimum isn't met so the mushers don't have to try to scramble to make impromptu changes at the last moment.

It's about time for these two forces to sort it out. I'm all for seeing traditional races continue. It's a mark of respect for the rich heritage of the sport, and to the public that supports it.

Farmers markets are as much a part of Canada's subarctic history as gold mines and dogsleds. Some residents with green thumbs plan to replant this homegrown tradition this summer in the form of the Yellowknife Commons Co-operative farmers market.

According to co-organizer Amy Lizotte, 15 vendors have signed on to the project so far. Lizotte also surveyed 450 residents to gauge their appetite for locally-grown produce and 96 per cent responded positively to the notion of a farmers market, she said.

Members of the Territorial Farmers Association began planting seedlings in greenhouses earlier this month in preparation for the market, which will also feature locally-harvested fish, wild berries and homemade products such as jams, breads and even ice cream.

But agriculture is not a spectator sport. The organizers of the farmers market, along with members of the Yellowknife Community Garden Collective and other like-minded organizations, are encouraging residents to get involved either by growing their own food or by lending unused land to other growers.

A joint $6 million agriculture investment from the GNWT and the federal government as part of the Growing Forward 2 program offers support to local growers over the next five years, which is even more incentive for residents to dig in the dirt.

The re-emergence of a local-food-production system can help bring neighbours together in the pursuit of a healthy common goal, while saving money and the environment. Shipping costs take a toll on families' grocery bills while trucks filled with lettuce and potatoes needlessly pollute the environment.

This fertile idea has already planted roots in the community. With a bit more tender loving care, Yellowknife's food-production system can catch up to more mature growing operations in the South Slave and Inuvik.

Privacy and information commissioner Elaine Keenan Bengts brings up some good points in her highly-critical report on the expanding role of digital medical records in the NWT.

For instance, is it really appropriate for the Department of Health and Social Services' director of social programs to have high-level access to people's personal medical records? Who should have access to extremely sensitive personal information which, according to Keenan Bengts, currently includes everyone from physicians to billing clerks - 150 employees in Yellowknife's two primary health care clinics.

Access to the system is controlled by a "role-based" hierarchy which limits the electronic records available depending on the employee's clearance level. But all 150 workers can access "encounter records" summarizing the nature of a patient's visits to the clinic. This can be anything from inquiries about screening for sexually transmitted diseases to psychiatric diagnoses.

Naturally, with so many employees viewing the records, the temptation to gossip about some of this information might be too much for some people, especially in a city as small as Yellowknife.

The Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority appears to have recognized this might be a problem. It has ordered all employees to sign a confidentiality agreement, and all log-ins are recorded to identify the employees accessing the files. The system is also audited once a week for inappropriate access.

People close to the electronic medical system, including Yellowknife physician Dr. Ewan Affleck, have offered impassioned defences of it. He argues the system protects patients by providing immediate up-to-date information when a patient's life depends on it.

No doubt the health authority has the public's best interest at heart. The problem will come should a breach of privacy goes public, such as when medical records were accidentally faxed to a city media outlet on numerous occasions in 2010 and then again in July 2012.

A serious breach such as that will make it extremely difficult for the gatekeepers of the electronic medical system to regain the public's confidence in this system.

When it comes to many true Kivalliq hockey fans, the NHL's trade deadline day is kind of like an official holiday in the region.

Some use sick days, some lieu time, and others bite the bullet and use an annual day to stay home, glued to the TV set, and follow the day's proceedings.

No offence to basketball fans (when they start to allow clotheslines in the key I'm there), but, the funny part is, trade day is a lot like a basketball game in that you can often catch the last few minutes and not miss much.

TV coverage on trade day has gone insane these days, beginning around 8 a.m. and going right through until a little after the deadline at 3 p.m. Eastern (can't miss any late deals caught in a fax machine).

And, you can bet your bottom dollar those hockey fans who did go to work immediately set their computer, cellphone or iPad to a website that runs up-to-the-minute tracking all day.

It really is quite impressive when you think about it, whether you're a hockey fan or not.

Many of those watching at home spent much of the previous two or three days scouring Internet rumour sites to get the lowdown from those claiming to be "connected" on what deals are being discussed by what teams.

But, the vast majority of the time, the rumours are just that - rumours.

Only on rare occasions do the names of players truly being discussed in trade talks by rival general managers (GM) get leaked to anyone.

There's nothing that will alienate a player from the team he's playing for quicker then to find out his GM has been trying to move him.

It's that whole being-made-to feel-wanted routine.

While there are a fair number of Canucks, Oilers, Flames, Senators and Jets fans in the Kivalliq, they pale significantly in comparison to the number of Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens fans.

They were among the most disappointed of all fans on trade day, with neither club doing much of any significance other than the Leafs picking up stay-at-home defenceman Ryan O'Byrne from the Colorado Avalanche.

In fact, more than a few probably wished they had their sick day back after Nick Kypreos cracked his 100th, and final, lame joke of the day to help fill the time.

But, rest assured, Kivalliq hockey fans are a passionate bunch and a good number of them will come down with a severe bout of the trade-day flu in 2014, once again.

It's that passion and dedication to the game that makes Kivalliq hockey so special, and why so many visiting players, coaches and officials leave here so impressed when they get to attend one of our major tournaments.

While there's a lot more to life than hockey, there's really not a heck of a lot more that can leave such a lasting impression on a group of visitors in such a short period of time.

And on a consistent basis!

That probably doesn't sit too well with those in the Kivalliq who, for whatever reason, think there's too much emphasis put on the game here, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.

Just ask the numerous office managers who were answering their own phones this past trade day!

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