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No remedy to the city's addictions issues, and the crimes that go hand in hand with them, will come unless our territorial politicians actually do something.

Monday's closure of Hay River's Nats'ejee Keh Treatment Centre, and the decade-long mothballing of the Somba K'e Healing Lodge near Dettah, is more evidence that ideas are lacking among the territorial government brain trust.

Health Minister Tom Beaulieu's answer to the lack of treatment facilities in the North is to provide small aboriginal communities with mobile clinics and treatment "on the land," adding "we've never tried it before."

When asked of future plans for the now shuttered Nats'ejee facility, which, much like the Somba K'e Healing Lodge, will be kept on some sort of government life support for unwanted buildings, roofed and heated at the taxpayers' expense, Beaulieu said, "I don't know."

Will mobile clinics and on-the-land treatment work in the territory's capital, where so many people from these communities wind up on the city's streets? People should be forgiven for feeling cynical when presented with such an incoherent solution. But Beaulieu isn't the only one.

Responding to the rising tide of panic over a number of violent attacks on women in recent months, Justice Minister Glen Abernethy offers people exactly what they don't want to hear.

"Each of us has a role in enhancing public safety," he writes in his guest column in today's Yellowknifer, referring to the Community Safety Strategy he introduced in his minister's statement of May 30. The strategy, he assures us, "will help people learn what they can do to create healthy, safe communities and encourage innovative ideas." And, with a "growing sense of empowerment, confidence, accountability and self-reliance that will come from taking charge of their own issues, will also help to reverse the cycle of harm and build the social cohesion that all healthy communities need."

This is how the minister apparently intends to address complaints from women who simply don't feel safe downtown - many of them GNWT employees who run the daily gauntlet to and from their downtown office buildings, dodging intoxicated people on the streets. It's a negative perception now spreading to the rest of the city.

Yellowknifers don't need a sense of empowerment and self-reliance. They need a government that realizes a city of this size, as the capital of the territory, has unique needs when compared to other NWT communities.

It makes no sense to most people here that the territorial government can be shutting down residential treatment centres while the downtown streets are full of people who, presumably, could benefit from a stay in one.

Yellowknifers also wonder if RCMP foot patrols - including ATV patrols? - have increased, as Abernethy insists in his column. Why aren't they widely visible?

Residents no doubt welcome the opportunity to be heard at tomorrow night's meeting, but all too often the government's only response to a crisis of confidence is for cabinet ministers to take turns on the dunking chair while the angry townsfolk try to knock them into the water.

It's nice that Abernethy is willing to take a dunking for his team, but is he going to deliver more police to the city or not? He can expect that question Thursday night.

Hopefully, when the legislative assembly resumes Oct. 17, Yellowknife MLAs will follow up with him and other cabinet ministers on what they intend to do to help make their capital city safer.

With the Rankin Inlet arena set to open, the hamlet now finds itself on equal footing with the rest of the Kivalliq in one important area - and that's not a good thing!

The problem Rankin faces this season is one its hockey community has been warned of for years, but the pleas fell on deaf ears.

The senior mens' teams will be hard hit by the dilemma, as they're the first to expect the puck to drop each year to begin a new season in the once proud Rankin Inlet Senior Men's Hockey League.

However, going into this season, Rankin is down to a paltry two full-time officials in yours truly and fellow Level 4 zebra Max MacDonald.

Part-time official David Clark can work a game a week, and Noel Kaludjak plans to take the course and help out, but his preference is to work minor hockey.

With the senior loop featuring five games per week, that's not going to cut it.

That's a minimum of 10 ref games a week.

So, unless Hockey Town expects MacDonald and I to call four games each a week - with our work schedules and me now 55, that won't happen - some folks must step up or Rankin returns to the era of the puckdropper.

And I do not use the term affectionately.

Oh, there are some players and fans who prefer puckdroppers over real refs.

They're the ones who can usually be heard yelling, "Let them play!" and "What was that call for?" night in and night out during the season.

I share TV sports show talk host and author Bob McCown's view of let them play as an incomplete thought.

Let them play until what? A brawl ensues? Somebody's hurt? Worse?

These fans and players have their collective heads buried in the 1970s and refuse to join the rest of the world in how the game is played today.

And, to be honest, true "players" don't buy it.

They may not always voice it, but get them alone for a few pops and they'll tell you they enjoy playing the game a lot more with good officiating.

Accept it or not, the game, itself, is also far better.

The second part of the dilemma Rankin now faces - with the amount of tournaments the community holds every year - is someone will have to come up with a whole lot of extra money to fly officials in from outside Nunavut and pay their hotels, meals and higher game fees.

The number of hockey officials in Nunavut has dropped below the critical point, and now Rankin, the supposed crown jewel of the territory's hockey hot beds, has become part of the problem rather than the solution.

There's no doubt part of the problem has been Hockey Nunavut and Hockey North's scatter-gun approach to officiating over the past decade, trying to prove they have a presence in every community - the majority of which don't host a true hockey game all season - rather than focusing on the communities that do the lion's share of the work.

But that's no excuse for a hockey crazy town to sit idly by while its hockey program goes down the tubes.

There are no more get-out-of-jail-free cards.

You either step up and help with the program, or stop complaining when you're signing cheques for thousands of dollars to bring in out-of-town refs for every tournament.

The second choice, given Rankin's storied hockey past, deserves a gross misconduct penalty!

Last week, Western Arctic NDP MP Dennis Bevington argued against the direction the federal government is moving in as Canada assumes leadership of the Arctic Council for the next two years.

He says there are two roads to travel - one of regulations, research, international co-operation and environmental conservation, and one of "economic-driven development and exploitation of resources."

It's not so cut and dry. The program Canada has developed with Leona Aglukkaq, Arctic Council chair and Nunavut Conservative MP, in the driver's seat, centres around resource development and creating sustainable communities.

Aglukkaq is hoping to develop a circumpolar business forum to bolster economic development and engage business and industry in the North with the council's nations.

While Bevington calls this route "counterproductive and wrongheaded," he offers no alternative other than creating a vague framework of environmental protection and protocols for dealing with southern regions moving in with observer statuses.

The Arctic Council is a forum for discussion of the Arctic region by its nations. It is an important entity which oversees working groups conducting scientific research on pollution, climate change, emergency preparedness and Arctic shipping, to name a few. But it hasn't really done too much in its 17 years.

Spearheading a business forum where Northerners themselves can get involved and benefit from the relationship between the nations is a proactive approach. A job is better than a handout in any community, whether it be Behchoko, NWT, or Kolari, Finland.

Jobs stimulate the economy and give residents a chance to build healthy and sustainable lives. Otherwise, the territory is on its knees waiting for federal support, indulging in a constant hand-to-mouth relationship.

Bevington must instill more of a vision and get to the specifics of what can better the territory, instead of laying out partisan criticisms. He must be more supportive of revenue opportunities and champion the renewable resources that are readily available here such as tourism and non-renewable such as diamonds, gold, oil and gas..

It is a challenge to be heard when you're not in the leading party, but it makes it that much more important for an MP to shout out our needs and push for a better North.

Five communities along the proposed Mackenzie Valley Highway - those expected to be most affected by the road's presence - took part in scoping sessions for the project earlier this month.

Wrigley was one of the first to hear plans for the 818-kilometre road. Residents are worried about what the increased traffic from the road will bring to the community - whether it be more drugs and alcohol and, partnered with that, more crime.

This is reminiscent of the 1970s when Highway 1 was stopped before it hit Wrigley, with residents crying out that the connection to the outside world would be detrimental for the area.

But the road did come. Wrigley has been the end point of Highway 1 since 1994. Barges travel the river and in the winter, the ice road winds its way to the Sahtu.

Wrigley isn't in a bubble but it has legitimate concerns about social issues getting worse as the kilometres get tacked on.

Now is the time for the chief, band council and territorial government to get busy developing viable social service capacity in anticipation of what's to come when the $1.7-billion road is eventually built.

Alcohol has a bad reputation in Nunavut, deservedly so.

Since being introduced centuries ago by non-Inuit whalers and traders, alcohol abuse has left a trail of blood and broken people.

By itself alcohol is not evil but it fuels the destructive fires in the hearts and souls of our loved ones, our neighbours, even our leaders.

None of this is news to Nunavummiut. The territory has banned alcohol in most of its communities and closely regulated it in others. Buying a bottle legally is neither easy nor cheap. Forms have to be filled out, shipping arranged, licences granted for resale.

Yet like water finding its way to the sea, thanks to money hungry bootleggers, alcohol still flows into each community, not drowning sorrows but drowning people and destroying lives.

Now that an overwhelming majority of MLAs have voted to loosen the liquor laws, the Nunavut government is preparing to sell alcohol through government run stores, as is done in the south.

It will be up to each community how far they want to go. What's a community to do?

Banning alcohol hasn't solved the problem. Alcohol is here to stay, along with the harm it causes.

But controlling the sale of alcohol can accomplish two things banning does not.

Bootleggers dread the legal sale of alcohol. Community liquor stores will steal the bootleggers' best customers and put them out of business. They might even be driven to use their business experience to start a legal business that helps the community rather than hurting it.

The other significant potential benefit is the money the bootleggers were making will shift to the community liquor store. What should happen to the store profits which promise to be significant?

Should it go into the coffers of the territorial government where it will never be seen again? Or should it stay in the community that suffers from the direct negative effects of the alcohol being sold?

We say that money should stay in the community. Treat it like bingo money to be used to benefit community groups that contribute to the heath of the residents.

Of course, the GN will want to keep its hands on all liquor store profits. Nanulik MLA Johnny Ningeongan pointed out that the legislation fails to include a commitment on how the liquor store revenues are to be spent, such as public information campaigns to promote responsible drinking.

Former Rankin Inlet North MLA Tagak Curley predicted that those communities opting for a liquor store would create a bootlegging operation by creating a source of alcohol to send to nearby dry communities.

His warning should be taken seriously. It will be up to the RCMP and more importantly, Nunavummiut to step forward and help authorities to shut such operations down in both the communities with the liquor store and the ones without.

For many years, the mantra around city hall and elsewhere about town was a "public market."

If only there was a little more help from the city, a bit more encouragement from the chamber of commerce, would this oft-withering fruit finally thrive, the mantra called.

Occasionally, the idea, most often voiced by former city councillor David McCann, actually happened but inevitably failed every time.

The city offered up its parking lot on Saturdays in 2006, but it's doubtful anyone recalls this asphalt version as being all that great or well-attended.

Since that ill-fated market seven years ago, the city's vast parking lot is now an appealing civic plaza. A gloriously hot and sunny summer led into an equally glorious fall.

Most important, though, is the changed vision of what a public market ought to be and how to maintain its success. The Yellowknife Commons Co-operative, a group of enterprising green thumbs, took the advice of experts from Ontario earlier this year who told them to avoid selling too much arts and crafts, the items typically sold in previous public markets held in the city.

The occasional tourist might be interested in these, but it's obvious the key to sustained interest and success is not homemade jewelry and hand-crafted coffee mugs, but locally-grown, fresh lettuce and tomatoes. That's what brings people back week after week.

This lesson was amply clear at the last farmers market of the season, Sept. 17. As the temperature dipped and the sun began to fail, people were still lining up to buy fresh vegetables and fish, months after the first farmers market of the year.

This is something a Yellowknife public market has not experienced in modern memory.

The farmers market's success this year proves two things: Yellowknife-grown food can sustain it and people will keep coming back for it.

For most, a simple walk to an already-full refrigerator, or a quick trip to the grocery store, satisfies the human requirement for food. When we're hungry, we eat.

For others, hunger is staved off by twice-monthly deliveries from the city's food bank - operating from a donated space in the Overlander Sports basement.

Last year, 200 Yellowknife families - or 8,000 people over the year - received food from the Yk Food Bank. The volunteers have done a fantastic job, and mostly under the radar.

But the food bank is a volunteer organization under stress. As Yellowknifer reported last week, more than half the board members have had to step down due to illness, family emergencies or other personal reasons.

The situation is dire, as there are only five volunteers remaining to do this important work.

As food bank president Grant Pryznyk points out, Yellowknifers volunteer with many organizations and "they're up to their eyeballs in it." However, helping continue the stream of food from the depot to the bellies of Yellowknifers in need would only mean two hours a week of dedicated time.

More people stepping up would help ensure that the current volunteers don't suffer burn-out by overextending themselves. More volunteers would also help avert the worst case scenario - cutting back on distribution days.

The old adage - many hands make light work - applies in this case.

It seemed like Fort Simpson stepped back in time last week. Absent were the familiar sights of people texting, using their cellphones or paying with debit cards as Northwestel's services were cut off.

The outage shows how dependent we are on technology, how unprepared for emergencies many are and how reliant on one company for telecommunications the village is.

This country has used long-distance calling for decades to do business. Then came e-mail and the Internet, which were also affected last week. Without communication, there is not much one can do.

The Northern store had to borrow someone's satellite phone to place orders. As the store is serving our community and others, perhaps the North West Company should have a back-up plan, such as a satellite phone or alternate means of communication, in case something like this happens again.

Many were likely caught off guard by having only cash as a payment option, as many tend to use debit and credit cards. Even today, having a bit of cash in cases of emergencies is necessary.

The village must also be better prepared. The mayor admitted the village does not have a working satellite phone. This needs to change. They need to set the example. They should have the information about what the issue is and relay it to the community.

One should note that during the outage, there was no long distance and Internet service for Northwestel subscribers. Those who received their internet through SSi Micro were unaffected. Should the village consider having at least have one staff member at the office or one councillor or the mayor on SSi Micro at home as backup?

For those who think no Internet nor long distance for a day or two is no big deal, consider this – no outside communication means the village is cut off from the rest of the world. Should an emergency arise, how is the village able to communicate with others to get help? Most likely a number of people trying to check on the welfare of a loved one couldn't get through, resulting in needless worries.

Jeanne Gagnon is the acting editor for Deh Cho Drum while Roxanna Thompson is on vacation.

I have a confession to make.

I find it rather amusing when I hear people in Inuvik grumble "there's nothing to do here."

I'm approaching a full year here in town and I am frankly still amazed that anyone can make that comment with a straight face.

Compared to the rural area where I was working and living before arriving in the North, Inuvik has the proverbial embarrassment of riches.

Over the last week, I've been compiling a list of activities available this fall that would turn most people back in Ontario green with envy.

Indoor soccer at the East Three gym is free two nights a week. So is badminton, sponsored by the college. Ditto for circuit training, offered by Natasha Kulikowski. A season of volleyball is cheaper here than in Ontario. The Delta Divas women's hockey league is firing up at a little more than $100 a season.

That's only starting to scratch the surface of possibilities. There are minor sports, particularly hockey, to an extent greater than I'm accustomed to seeing.

The Inuvik Youth Centre is having open sessions for kids at the East Three gym on designated nights.

The Inuvik Ski Club will soon be opening its season, with the possibility of increased snowshoeing this year.

That doesn't even touch on the gym facilities at the Midnight Sun Recreation Complex, or the pool or the squash courts. And, of course, the curling club.

Then there's yoga, and outdoor activities which include walking trails such as Boot Lake and the path to Three-Mile Lake.

Let's not forget about cycling around town, or the fact that Inuvik is one of the most walkable communities anywhere.

How about hunting and fishing, too?

Far from there not being anything to do here, there's a plethora of opportunities too numerous to get to unless you're extremely ambitious.

That's why I smile when I hear people, mostly ones born and raised here, complain about their circumstances.

I've been to places with far fewer recreational opportunities, and I've lived in places that would be delighted to have our Inuvik opportunities.

So I'd like to see people take more of an advantage of what we have here and indulge themselves, perhaps even spoil themselves a little. We shouldn't take the great opportunities we have to enjoy our community for granted.

The grass elsewhere is a lot less green than here, even as the snow begins to fall.

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