SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
After 34 years on the force, today is the last day on the job for the Northwest Territories' top cop. Although he'll be hanging up the red serge, Chief Superintendent Wade Blake isn't retiring from the world of justice.

Chief Supt. Wade Blake, commanding officer of the RCMP in the Northwest Territories, hangs up the red serge today as he steps down from his post and transitions into a new job with the territory's justice department. - Daniel Campbell/NNSL photo

After more than three decades with the Mounties, Blake is putting on civilian clothes and becoming the new director of community justice and policing in the territory. Although he always wanted to spend a full 35 years with the force, Blake says the new job was an offer he couldn't resist

"I had no intentions of giving up working life at age 55. Would I sit at home and go knitting?" he said. "I knew I was going to do something. I wanted to do something that related to the work I've already done."

With a background in community policing, restorative justice and experience in victim services, Blake said the new job is "an absolute perfect fit."

Joining the RCMP in 1980, Blake has spent his time with the force across Canada, serving in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Alberta and finally, in Yellowknife.

In the small community of Goose Bay, N.L., where he grew up, Blake said he looked up to the teachers, nurses and RCMP officers who were prominent in the community.

"I had positive interactions with all of these people," said Blake. "I always saw what they did as helping the community."

Although his family has no history of RCMP service, Blake was determined to join, signing up for RCMP summer student programs, detachment guard duty and as an auxiliary corporal.

His mother told him to get a college education - "as a plan B" in case he never made it to the force - but by the age of 18, Blake was a full-fledged member of the RCMP and never looked back.

Rising up through the ranks to the NWT's top post was something of a natural progression, said Blake. All he ever wanted to be was a constable, and once he got there, he kept looking upwards.

"As you go through your service and you learn more about the organization, you see where you can positively influence people or directions of the organization," Blake said.

"I don't think anyone starts out saying, 'hey, I'll be the commanding officer of the Northwest Territories some day.'"

Being the NWT's top Mountie is kind of like being the CEO of a company - anything the organization does is a direct reflection on him, said Blake.

With that in mind, Blake set about getting some of the right people in the right places within 'G' Division - the monicker of the Mounties' unit in the NWT.

The RCMP took a grassroots approach to policing in the territory under Blake's reign. Officers worked closely with elected officials and community members to understand their priorities.

In Yellowknife, Insp. Frank Gallagher, the city's detachment commander, meets monthly with city council to discuss the past month's crime and set goals for the future.

"In four years, I believe people are way more engaged. They have more say," said Blake.

But his tenure in the territory hasn't been without its challenges. Issues like alcohol and drug abuse remain prevalent, along with the family violence, sexual assaults and murders that come with it.

A side-effect of addictions issues has been southern-based gangs coming into Yellowknife, selling mostly crack-cocaine and marijuana. Blake said the city is a lucrative market for them, and the RCMP have been trying to keep them at bay the last two years.

"I think we've made a fairly decent impact on suppressing - I won't say eliminating, but suppressing."

At least 13 people, a number of them from Lower Mainland B.C., were arrested last October and December in multiple drug raids across the city. Crown prosecutors have dropped charges on five of them.

While Blake said the RCMP have hit the gangs at every opportunity, he worries about them spreading outside Yellowknife.

"It'll be hard to kind of get rid of the influence they have in the smaller communities."

Holding the gangs out of the vulnerable communities dotting the territory will now fall on Blake's successor, Supt. Ron Smith.

Although he's only lived in Yellowknife for four years, Blake said he's happy to be staying in the city, and finds a lot of similarities between here and his childhood home of Goose Bay.

"It's not foreign being here. It actually feels like home," said Blake.

Still wearing the uniform, answering calls and keeping busy until the bitter end, Blake said the fact he's leaving the RCMP hasn't quite hit him.

"For the first time in some 30 years, I'll be a civilian," he said.

"I don't know. My wife says to me every other day, 'start showing some emotion, you've been with the force since you were 18 and it's like leaving the family.' I've talked to other members and I think it's going to come afterwards."

A change of command ceremony is tentatively set for July 9 at the legislative assembly.

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