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Greenpeace is making its return to the North, hoping to rebuild bridges burnt as the result of past environmental campaigns that all too cast First Nation traditional and hunting practices in a negative light more than their intended whaling and fur industry targets.

The organization itself admitted last month while protesting a meeting of the Arctic Council that it had "fractured relationships" with First Nations in the North due to these campaigns - over seal hunting in particular.

Now Greenpeace says it wants to work with these groups to go after a larger enemy - those evil gas companies.

Unfortunately, the organization is proving yet again its difficulty casting aside hysterics and hyperbole.

Case in point is the attendee at a recent Greenpeace meeting complaining about the lack of foxes in Norman Wells, saying local oil and gas development are responsible.

Really? There are many species that are sensitive to human activities but it's hard to imagine a northern animal more common around civilization, other than perhaps the raven, than the red fox. There is certainly no shortage of them around Yellowknife despite decades of mining activity and growth. In fact, recent studies show the red fox range is likely expanding due to climate change. Perhaps this person from Norman Wells isn't looking hard enough.

Alas, her message will inevitably travel south and get swallowed up by other Greenpeace members, and before you know it environmentalists will be talking about how oil and gas development in the Sahtu kills foxes.

That isn't to say that oil and gas development - like all industrial efforts - doesn't cause environmental problems. This is well documented. Whether it be through its by-products, such as carbon dioxide leading to a bevy of environmental problems around the world, or through incidents leading to local catastrophes. Just ask anyone in Prince William Sound in Alaska following the Exxon Valdez running aground there in 1989, or the American Gulf Coast following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill just four years ago.

The problem with Greenpeace and groups like it, isn't their lack of passion for protecting the environment. It's the lack of credibility that corrodes its brand when it allows myths to pass as fact and blanket views on hunting and fishing that inevitably conflict with Northerners.

The organization made a good first step by admitting the misguidance of its previous campaign against seal hunting. The trick will come with stamping down the zealots among them.

Passing through Yellowknife, it is unlikely one would find art as permanent, prominent and iconic as Francois "T-Bo" Thibault's monumental United in Celebration sculpture - standing tall, fierce and magical at the award-winning Somba K'e Civic Plaza.

It served as a backdrop for the 2009 Olympic torch relay and for the royal visit by Prince William and Duchess Catherine in 2011.

When celestial events occur, such as the planet Venus passing over the face of the sun in 2012, United in Celebration makes it into the photos. It's not unusual to spot passersby taking shots of each other, or simply lounging, in front of the statue on any given day.

But beyond that sculpture's already ubiquitous existence, beyond the fact that Thibault's jewelry and carvings can be found all over the world, due to his own travels to international events or thanks to international travellers stopping in at one of his shops over the years - his legacy involves more.

As an artist and entrepreneur, he was a tireless advocate for the arts, a devotee to the idea - sometimes so difficult to grasp - that artists are valuable, should be valued and, most importantly, should be paid for the work they do.

In 2001, he walked into the Yellowknifer office with a vision of an arts centre constructed of old steel fuel tanks abandoned by Giant Mine. He had vision, he was an innovator. That project never did get off the ground, but it eloquently demonstrates the importance of stepping outside the box, to imagine.

In the city where he lived and died, he serves as an example for citizens, city administrators and fellow artists.

Art matters and contributes to the betterment of the daily lives of all citizens in a tangible way.

Across the Deh Cho, a group of people are getting excited about the onset of spring.

They are leafing through seed catalogues, making purchases and may even have seedlings started in sunny windows or under special lights. These gardeners are waiting, sometimes impatiently, until conditions are just right for them to start working and then planting their garden.

Gardening is a great summer time activity in the Deh Cho for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is relatively easy.

The region has lots of warm summer days, ample hours of sunlight and few pests that want to eat garden plants. Many communities are also blessed with fertile soil that plants easily flourish in.

Community gardens, which have been established in almost all Deh Cho communities, make it easy for residents who have little to no gardening experience to try their hand at planting a few vegetables. Community gardens encourage members to share their experiences so those who have been life-long green thumbs can pass on their knowledge and tips to the less experienced.

Gardening is also a great activity because of what it produces. Gardens in the Deh Cho are capable of growing almost anything. The Fort Simpson Community Garden has had success with run of the mill vegetables like potatoes, beans, spinach, peas, kale, carrots, and cabbage, but has also produced things like eggplants, hot peppers, cantaloupes and garlic.

By growing produce locally, Deh Cho gardeners are ensuring they have the freshest and maybe the healthiest food possible. A tomato fresh from the garden is certainly more nutritious and likely tastes better than one that has been over countless kilometres in a truck to sit in a grocery store produce section.

Gardening also reduces grocery bills and provides people with exercise. There is also the pride that comes with growing food yourself. A cabbage that a gardener planted as a seed and tended, watered and cared for has a lot more meaning for them than one purchased at a store.

The start of the summer growing season is still a month away, but now is the time for Deh Cho residents to get prepared and organized. Given the ease at which gardens can be grown in the Deh Cho and the numerous benefits that they create every community should have a flourishing community garden in addition to the personal gardens that individuals have already established.

There's no question that health care is expensive.

That point was driven home recently as the Beaufort Delta Health and Social Services Authority unveiled a new state-of-the-art digital mammography machine at its diagnostic imaging department.

The unit, which can process twice as many patients as the film unit it's replacing, rang in at a cost of about $260,000.

Along with the capacity to serve more patients, the machine allows data to be transmitted instantly to a Calgary medical centre where it can be viewed almost immediately. That's in contrast to waiting weeks for traditional film images to be processed, read and then reported on.

By any standard, that's progress.

The machine is also safer, with about half the dosage of radiation per test than the older unit. Like a digital camera, technicians can also review the images immediately, deciding on the spot whether more need to be taken.

It's hard to argue that isn't an improvement.

The only rub, if there is one, lies in the fact that mammography clinics are only scheduled for three times a year at the Inuvik Regional Hospital.

I've already heard people question whether it's sensible to have a machine worth more than a quarter-million dollars lie mostly dormant through the year, and that's a valid point.

However, the principle isn't much different than the other clinics, including vision clinics, that operate intermittently here in Inuvik.

The question you have to ask yourself is whether the pressure to keep modernizing equipment at the hospital pays off in better medical coverage which means, bluntly, whether it's going to improve the health of the general public and to save lives.

The answer, equally bluntly, is yes it will.

So while $260,000 is a "big chunk of change," I doubt too many people will want to argue it's not worth it to save a single life. If this new mammography machine will help to detect cancers earlier, it's going to save lives and, not so coincidentally, save costs in the long run.

Like many things, it's more costly to try to repair serious health problems that it is to try to prevent them outright, or to treat them at an early stage.

Hospital and health care equipment is a huge cost, and one that's not likely to get cheaper any time soon.

So it sounds to me like the new mammography machine is money well-spent in the long run.

There is a reason why people wax poetically about the good old days.

Times truly were simpler. People put out their trash without fear of having too many bags, went through airport security without having to take off their shoes and pour out their drinks, and went to the beach with a reasonable expectation that it would be staffed by lifeguards not tied to their deck chairs in red tape.

It's government that finds a way of complicating things, and that was no less true in 2003 when after years of steadily supplying lifeguards at Long Lake Beach, the government made them extinct, with the city and the GNWT both blaming each other for the cataclysm. First it was a lack of qualified lifeguards, next it was the territorial government's "liability."

Yellowknifer warned them someone, probably a child, would drown while they threw up roadblocks and dithered. Last year, the inevitable did happen even though there had been plenty of warnings and tragedies averted leading up to the drowning of seven-year-old Lodune Shelley, including a near drowning the year before.

Ten months after Shelley's death, a report written by the Lifesaving Society of Alberta/NWT has been released by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment that finally addresses the one service residents have been demanding all along - lifeguards at Long Lake.

Lifeguards are indeed on the radar - for a price, financially and practically. What cost the city and GNWT $21,000 to staff lifeguards at Long Lake in 2002, now costs $444,354 to have full-time lifeguards at Long Lake and in Hay River. Perhaps the lack of lifeguards in Hay River is an issue but it didn't appear to be one at the time of Shelley's drowning. That's one complication.

In addition to the enormous increase in cost - no issue, swears parks minister David Ramsay - is the report's warning that attendance at a fully lifeguarded beach will have to be limited. That's another complication.

This is all reminiscent of the saga that followed the call for 9-1-1 emergency phone service after a snowmobiler was seriously injured on Prosperous Lake but no one knew who to call for help. Study after study was written, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, and yet 14 years later the only 9-1-1 service Yellowknifers ever received was the imaginary one billed on Bell customer cellphones.

The shear exhaustiveness of the options the lifeguard report details, the lack of advertising for suitable contractors, the carefully inserted "if it will make the beach safer" qualifier added to Ramsay's stated commitment to bring some form of supervision back to Long Lake, makes one wonder just how committed the government really is in doing so.

Time will tell but the track record to date is less than inspiring.

I had the privilege of reading two articles earlier this month -- one by Michelle Stirling-Anosh, who is fearless against critical reprisals from the bleatings of misinformed public opinion -- which led me to a mind-numbing report from the United Kingdom entitled, Climate Control: Brainwashing in Schools.

It's mandatory reading for any educator who catches a referred episode of the Nature of Things and, along with learning how to be a wild elephant, becomes an in-class purveyor of global warming propaganda after sealing a letter of apology to their great-grandchildren for all the environmental damage their generation has wrought.

The report was so damning it prompted U.K. Education Secretary Michael Gove to publicly remind educators who preach an eco-agenda that they are breaking the law.

This is the same Gove who is under fire from U.K. educators for his support of corporate-backed free schools, many of which provide top-tier education for children of low-income families (We can't have that now, can we?).

The big business connection -- plus the fact some of the free schools, like any other system, don't do as good a job as others -- leaves the secretary open to claims of kneeling to corporate greed.

It's a familiar tactic of those who support the man-made global-warming theory.

They rabidly condemn any study that does not support their beliefs and receives corporate dollars, but keep their own cone of silence firmly in place when it comes to where a great deal of the funding for science-for-sale originates from.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation report finds environmentalism has permeated curricula in an astonishing variety of subjects.

I have the highest respect for many of our teachers here in the Kivalliq, and others across Nunavut who were once in our region.

Yet, in conversations with a number of them, I must admit to feeling worried about the message they may be passing onto students concerning climate change.

My worry stems from the fact that, like many environmentalists, they adamantly state man-made global warming is real.

Yet, I hear little of substance to support the claim, other than mentions of that inconvenient, self-promoting documentary that was all the rage so many years ago.

They tell me of scientists warning of global warming to the United Nations, then profess support of a trendy means of alternate energy such as the wind.

However, as Stirling-Anosh and many others have pointed out, wind energy is backed by gas plants to offset wind variability and can be up to nine times the cost of conventional power.

And they're silent when it comes to the collateral damage the clean power of the wind can be responsible for.

When you pull back the curtain to see the wizardry of wind power, you see mining to uncover turbine magnets.

If global warming is to be discussed in classrooms, then for every reference to David Suzuki, there has to be one to Brian Fagan.

Every video clip of falling ice has to come with statistics showing no global increase in the trend of violent or extreme weather.

Instead of using fear to polarize young minds, both sides must be presented in a fair and balanced manner.

After all, knowledge is power of a different sort.

Carbon monoxide is a threat that most people don't think about until it's too late. It kills silently and quickly and, unless the proper safety precautions are taken, with no warning.

The death of a Hay River couple at a cabin last October highlights the risk and the potential for more deaths in the territory.

Country living is commonplace in the NWT. Cabins dot the landscape as either privately-built homes or rental and short-stay accommodations. An example is the Mountain Aven Campground where Brenda Laviolette-Rapp and Robert Bradley died after succumbing to fumes from a propane lamp while they slept. According to the NWT's fire marshal it is common for cabins not to have carbon monoxide detectors and there is no territorial law requiring their installation.

Cathy Menard, the NWT's chief coroner, says carbon monoxide deaths in the NWT are rare. Before the couple died in Hay River no similar deaths had been reported in at least the past two years. However, one death is enough to raise the alarm and the evidence overwhelmingly supports the danger and potential for more tragedies if people are not vigilant.

The solutions are simple, as outlined by the fire marshal. Every home or cabin should be equipped with a carbon monoxide detector, especially those using gas or wood-burning appliances. Even off-the-grid properties can easily be equipped with the inexpensive devices.

They can easily be the difference between life and death.

Some Canadian provinces, such as Ontario, have made it law for homes to be equipped with carbon monoxide detectors. Although that idea has merit in the NWT concerning residential homes and businesses, it would be virtually unenforceable in the back country. With that in mind, it is in people's best interest to understand the dangers and protect themselves. Install detectors, ensure appliances are working properly and understand how they work. At the Mountain Aven Campground, the propane lamps that contributed to the deaths were in fact working correctly but, unbeknownst to users, when operating at low levels they emitted a lethal level of propane.

The territorial government should also help with education. Outlining resources for inspecting appliances that could pose a risk, how to safety-proof homes, how to recognize early signs of carbon monoxide poisoning and the various agencies and authorities that can assist people.

There is no fault in the deaths of Bradley and Laviolette-Rapp. What happened was a tragic accident. Their loss should not be in vain but serve as a warning to others.

Last week's announcement that two major airlines with a long history of serving the North are holding serious discussions about merging into one company means interesting times are ahead for the aviation industry in Nunavut.

Since Air Canada discontinued its scheduled service from Iqaluit to points south in 2011, Canadian North and First Air have been the dominant players in the market for long-haul passenger service from Nunavut's capital.

Although it will likely take more than one year for the companies to iron out a commercial agreement and receive approval from the competition bureau and federal regulators, it seems likely that the merger will become reality.

One aspect observers are considering is the issue of ownership. The Inuvialuit Development Corporation closed a deal earlier this month to take full control of NorTerra, which owns Canadian North, by purchasing 50 per cent of the assets from Nunasi Corp., a wholly Inuit-owned company. Some applauded the move, thinking Nunasi will be better off without a stake in NorTerra, while others are concerned that the Inuit of Nunavut are no longer involved with a major airline because First Air is owned by the Inuit of northern Quebec through Makivik Corporation.

To its credit, Canadian North is continuing to offer passenger fare discounts to Inuit beneficiaries from both the Eastern Arctic and Western Arctic. But what will happen in the future?

It is expensive to operate an airline in the North because of the vast distances, the climate and the higher cost to operate in comparison to the rest of Canada. A merger makes sense for the companies because it has the potential to eliminate duplication of service, personnel and equipment.

But there is bound to be a ripple effect of the merger. Specifics are difficult to predict because the structure of the merged company is still in the process of being developed.

Two things should be of concern to consumers - what will happen with fares for passengers and cargo, and will the level of service to Nunavut communities change? What will happen if the company created by the merger has a monopoly in parts of the regional market and a complete monopoly in the national market?

Aviation services are essential to the communities in Nunavut for passenger movement and the delivery of goods, including groceries. There may be an opportunity for regional carriers to become more dominant in the marketplace. Considering that construction of a new airport in Iqaluit is on the horizon, perhaps another major airline such as WestJet or Air Canada will begin offering flights out of the territory. The merger - if it goes ahead - will also create a hole in the market that might attract competition.

Those orchestrating the merger have much to consider. Hopefully they don't lose sight of the needs of the consumer while trying to create the potential for profitability.

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