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The painted scene accurately captures the inside of the Wildcat Cafe. The eatery is populated with coffee-drinkers and servers offering cafe-goers trays of cheese.

The discernible difference from reality is that the customers, created from the mind of Yellowknife artist Nick MacIntosh, are mice.

While this may appear to be a clever portrait celebrating an Old Town icon, to the City of Yellowknife it is an illegal act.

On July 8, MacIntosh was served a surprise. After printing his painting on T-shirts he had hoped to sell around the city - a $2,000 endeavour - the City of Yellowknife sent him a letter threatening legal action unless he surrenders all the shirts "bearing any reference-to or depiction-of the Wildcat Cafe."

Not wanting any trouble, he complied.

Does his depiction do the city a disservice? Would it have tainted the reputation of Yellowknife?

These are questions administration failed to ask the real owners of the copyright - the citizens of Yellowknife - before it forged ahead with a decision that has some people shaking their heads and others shaking their fists.

Understandably so - the city's thoughtless assertion of its copyright was a purely legal decision made without any consideration of its implications.

The city purchased the copyright in the first place to stop former chef Pierre LePage's attempted re-branding of the restaurant as "Le Wildcat" on menus, napkins and T-shirts.

Whereas that was an apt decision in which the city had its fingers on the pulse of the public, this one was not.

As the Wildcat Cafe is pumped fat with $500,000-worth of public funds, the city had a responsibility to take direction from its citizens. And because funnelling the interests of 20,000 people into a decision that pleases the majority can be like trying to corral a bunch of small wild animals, there is an elected council in place to make decisions on the public's behalf.

When the city makes such potentially contentious decisions without consulting the people or their representatives, it does us all a disservice. While the city does indeed have a responsibility to ensure the people's copyright is used properly, its responsibility is to the citizens of Yellowknife above any law-book or knee-jerk reaction.

The RCMP should be commended for putting officers on bikes, as should the officers who volunteered to take the required training.

The move goes a long way toward dispelling public safety fears in areas less accessible to cars and trucks -- such as the McMahon Frame Lake Trail.

While police, city administration and citizens have said fears directed toward the area are overblown, those who are fearful find this of little comfort.

Rather than face an uphill battle trying to convince would-be trail-walkers otherwise, it is far better to show that the area is safe by having police regularly patrol on bikes.

The problem is that it is a bit late in the season.

In mid-July, RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Marc Coulombe said the number of officers trained for bike patrols could triple over the next month.

At that time, the trained officers will have missed the opportunity to put their skills to use during the peak summer period which includes both Canada Day and Aboriginal Day and those who might make more use of the trail will have missed out on using the trail during that time as well.

On the other hand, bike cops will be ready to hit the trail and other more remote areas of the city in full force next summer.

We hope they do, putting their new-found skills to good use.

The centre is unlike anything in any other community in the region. Even Fort Simpson, with its larger population, doesn't have a centre of that calibre.

Most communities are lucky to have a few pieces of exercise equipment, if any at all. Fort Providence has a dedicated room in its recreation centre that is filled with brand new equipment.

The fitness centre will certainly be an asset for the community and will hopefully be well-used and afforded the proper level of appreciation. The improved centre was made possible through the community's involvement in a three-year pilot project.

Deh Gah School, the hamlet, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and Sports Canada are collaborating to discover if having a physical literacy co-ordinator in the school will result in the students being more physically active on a daily basis. Both the hamlet and the school used a portion of the funding they've received to purchase new equipment for the centre.

Patrick Kippax, the school's physical literacy co-ordinator, said he's already seen changes in the broader community. People are becoming more conscious about the importance of being more physically active and healthy, he said. There is a lot of interest from residents about being able to use the new centre.

The increased level of awareness is likely not limited to Fort Providence. On a daily basis people are bombarded with information in the media about the increasingly dire straits of the population's general health in Canada.

People aren't as active as they should be, they don't eat the food that is best for them and levels of obesity, diabetes and other health problems are on the rise. The question is, what actions are people willing to take to reverse the trends?

Not every community can be like Fort Providence and be chosen as the site for a physical fitness pilot project. Without additional funding many communities don't have the resources to purchase fitness equipment.

What residents can do is make healthy living and physical fitness a priority in their community and insist that their local government provide support in any way possible. That can include applying for grants to purchase new equipment or directing recreation staff to create fitness programs that appeal to a broader range of people.

Fort Providence has a leg up with its improved fitness centre, but other Deh Cho communities can follow different routes to also support healthy-living goals.

The question of homelessness in Inuvik continues to be a pressing one, and one of the main issues is how to assist that population during the day.

There's no argument there's a lack of things to do and places to go for the homeless during the day. That makes them more visible as they travel from place to place, often in groups, particularly during the endless days of summer.

The shelter stepped up in the last month or so to tackle that question with a bold move to try operating 24 hours a day four days a week.

So far, the test appears to be going well. Staff at the shelter report a fair bit of use during the day, and it also gives them a chance to provide more services for their clients.

Many of those clients are looking to get back into housing of some kind and need help with the government paperwork to do so, said shelter staff. That means they can become easily frustrated trying to properly fill out the forms and go from office to office to get things accomplished.

During the daytime, shelter staff now have the chance to render that assistance during the regular working hours of the government offices, and that's invaluable.

The main stumbling block to opening the shelter for longer hours is paying for it but, so far, a few tweaks to the budget and staff scheduling to reduce or eliminate overtime is making it feasible to keep it open four days a week.

Currently, though, the food budget is literally being eaten up as the shelter serves up to three meals a day to the people staying there.

It's clear the staff and board members would like nothing better than to turn it into a full 24/7 operation to better help the people they serve, but the funding just isn't there.

That makes it key for either the government to step in with more funding, and/or for community members to step up with more donations, whether it be cash, food, in-kind or volunteer assistance.

Currently, the shelter might well be the only one in the NWT offering this kind of service.

It's a step in the right direction, one the community needs to be aware of and fully support.

This year's record fire season has proven people must be prepared to protect their own properties when wildfires come close.

With 243 fires burning across the NWT, homes, cabins and lodges are under threat of burning anywhere below the treeline.

David and Kristen Olesen's home at the mouth of the Hoarfrost River on the east arm of Great Slave Lake was destroyed July 4.

While Olesen was given assurances crews would fight the fire near his home, he stopped short of laying blame, saying the fire caught everyone by surprise.

At the same time, members of the Gibeault family were left largely on their own battling a blaze threatening their cabin 80 km east of Yellowknife.

Gibeault decried the lack of help he and others received from the GNWT. He said he had to clear brush and spray water when flames came within metres of his property while GNWT firefighters focused on other areas nearby.

For both the Olesens and Gibeaults, it's clear they and all property owners living off the grid must be prepared to protect their properties on their own during fire season.

When resources are stretched thin under extreme conditions, decisions are made on the fly and communication can become confused. Mistakes can happen. Sometimes all the right decisions don't prevent tragedy. In the end, people can't rely on policy makers and bureaucrats because they have no control over them.

Well before this fire season, the GNWT had been vocal about getting property owners to be vigilant and follow Firesmart procedures, like clearing brush away from buildings, keeping woodpiles from the house, having a water supply, planning for the worst etc.

This fall, the GNWT should do a postmortem on how the season was handled, identifying gaps in information, re-examining priorities, strengthening communications not only with the public in general but those at immediate risk in particular.

Considering the effort put in and the successful protection of people and property across the territory, except the sad losses on the Hoarfrost River, there's no reason to doubt the dedication and resourcefulness of NWT firefighters.

Ensuring they have all the people and equipment they need should guide future policy and budget decisions.

If there was any doubt as to the ongoing needs of the less fortunate in the city, it was amply demonstrated by Renee Sanderson through her 2nd annual Christmas-in-July food giveaway.

Sanderson organized and distributed supply bags of food, toiletries and water to homeless men and women in front of the post office last week.

With the help of two volunteers and cash donations, she gave out 178 bags. Sanderson said she surpassed last year's cash donations and is planning on expanding next year, with clothing and backpacks if she can get enough donations.

The homeless and needy of the city need something like this now THAT there are fewer options for them to get bare necessities.

The Yk Food Bank shuts down from June to September. The now closed Day Shelter was one of the few places where people could get a snack during the day. Despite the summer weather, the situation looks bleak as the city and territorial government continues to drag their heels over a new location.

Sanderson's food effort and the response on the street are a healthy reminder the homeless need more than occasional donations. They need a guaranteed safety net.

I find that every so often there seems to be a theme to the stories I hear throughout the run of a week. It's odd, but it's as if clusters of things pertaining to a particular subject present themselves to me. Either that or I just relate them all in my mind and think of them that way.

This past week and a half the theme I've been hearing and thinking a lot about happens to be drowning.

I'm speaking in reference to the tragic loss of a young man in Whale Cove who drowned while swimming with a bunch of his friends. I know from speaking to people in the community that it's a loss that hits everyone, especially when the victim is so young.

I also heard the story of Louis Pilakapsi - the man heavily involved in politics and his community who drowned in 2000 in Hudson Bay just outside of Arviat with his ship crew. Even hearing that story 14 years later it's clear what a loss it was, and the person telling me the story said it was made even worse that all of the lives were lost and searchers never recovered them.

I know that loss, personally.

Coming from the East Coast and from an extended family of fishermen, drowning is something you just deal with growing up as one of those things that happens. You become desensitized to stories of drowning over time - at least until it hits someone in your family, or someone who you know well in your community, and then believe me, the senses come back.

A year-and-a-half ago, five young fishermen were lost when their boat, the Miss Ally, capsized during a February storm just after Valentine's Day. All of the men lost were young, had young families and, like most in southwest Nova Scotia, were related somehow to almost everyone.

One of the fishermen was my cousin, Billy Jack, and, although we were never really close, it still hit hard that he was gone, leaving behind young children. I remember when the call went out that the boat was in distress, another cousin's husband was one of the first to try and help.

The fishermen in the community took to the choppy seas themselves to try and rescue the young men, but there was nothing they could do.

For days I watched and listened around the community as girlfriends, wives and soon-to-be widows kept praying, left their outside lights on at night as a symbol of hope, and banded together for support until the sad day that the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP called off the search.

I'm sure in a coastal region like the Kivalliq there are many sad stories of lives lost and taken by the bay, lakes, rivers, while fishing or swimming, or just enjoying the water.

For all of those who have been touched by this, I know it's heart-wrenching to hear of it happening over and over again.

Unfortunately, so long as we venture out on the water to make a living, or harvest what nature has to offer, there will always be the chance that nature takes something back.

Last week, Effie Bella Snowshoe made the brave decision to speak publicly about the death of her son Edward, who had taken his own life after being held in a segregated cell for 162 days.

Effie reminded us all that Edward was a person with a family who cared about him.

The justice system did not seem to see him that way. To it, he was another inmate to be discarded - forgotten in a cell for the better part of six months.

The results of the inquiry into Edward's death in an Edmonton penitentiary in 2010, which was released late last month, should be shocking. Unfortunately, the way in which Edward was treated is part of an ongoing trend within the Canadian justice system. That system is supposed to punish and rehabilitate offenders. Instead, more and more stories are emerging about prisoners being mistreated while in custody, so much so that Canada was found to be in breach of its obligations under the Convention Against Torture in 2012 because of its failure to adequately deal with prisoners with mental illness.

Despite clear signs of mental distress, including three previous suicide attempts, Edward was put in an isolated cell where the only means guards had to observe his movements was through a small slot.

In his report, Justice James Wheatley found that the guards at the Edmonton institution where he died were unaware of his history of self-harm, and that no real effort had been made to assess his mental health since he had arrived at the prison 28 days before his death.

Prior to arriving in Alberta, Edward had been held at Stony Mountain Institution in Manitoba. While there, he had attempted to fashion a weapon out of a juice box. As punishment, he was sent to segregated cells.

During his transfer, Edward's case was again mishandled and his segregation sentence reset. Instead of being near the end of his time in isolation, Edward would have been left with no idea when he would be able to leave the tiny room he was being held in.

Edward was 21 years old when he was sentenced to serve more than five years in jail for shooting a cab driver during a botched robbery attempt in Inuvik. He was 24 years old when he died. He deserved a chance at restitution, to serve his time and get on with his life.

If Edward had been treated in a humane way, he would have been treated for depression. He would have seen a counsellor. His request to rejoin the general population would not have been misplaced.

Instead, the community of Fort McPherson lost a son and a brother.

Edward Snowshoe deserved to be punished for the crime for which he was convicted, but he did not have to die.

The late Bern Will Brown had true pioneer spirit. Perhaps more importantly, he balanced that with a respect for traditional ways of life in the North.

When he arrived in Colville Lake from the south more than 50 years ago, he was an Oblate priest and constructed Our Lady of the Snows Church - the first permanent structure in the community.

Over the years, Brown learned to speak Slavey and lived alongside the people. As the community changed, he changed with it, eventually leaving the priesthood in the 1970s to marry a Northern girl, Margaret.

He ran a dog team, and later piloted a bush plane. He was both deeply religious and respected the belief system that the people of the Sahtu had adhered to before European contact.

For these and so many other reasons, Brown set a high standard for other southern ex-pats seeking to make a home for themselves in the North.

His death is a major loss for the North. They just don't seem make them like Bern Will Brown anymore.

Extreme measures needed so that youth say no to smokes
Nunavut News/North - Monday, July 21, 2014

Sometimes it takes fire to fight fire, which is why the concept of invigorating youth to prevent addiction among their peers makes a lot of sense.

Just as fire is used to create a fire break, the Department of Health's Tobacco Youth Action Team's message describing how addiction to nicotine is destroying Nunavut's youth will hopefully do the same to curb the prevalence of smoking in the territory.

It's that serious because Nunavut's anti-smoking advocates report that 59 per cent of residents age 12 years and older use tobacco products. Not only is that nearly half of the territory's population, the age group indicated in the statistics is particularly troubling.

Tobacco Youth Action Team members are generally students in Grade 8 or Grade 9, and smokers are welcome to join the team because they are part of the target audience and are in an ideal position to influence younger people who are just starting to smoke. For many people, hearing about people who start to smoke cigarettes even before reaching their teenage years is astounding. However, the Department of Health says that is the reality in Nunavut.

As if the coughing and hacking that accompanies the first inhalation of tobacco smoke is not enough of a deterrent, there is the high cost of a cigarettes, in excess of $20 per pack, to consider.

"We need to stop this tobacco insanity," was how school teacher Scott McFadden summed it up.

We couldn't agree more.

The teams of youth were tasked with creating a message that will get through to their friends and younger people in the community telling them that smoking is not cool. His students at Paatsaali School in Sanikiluaq chose to bring the message home by showing a jar filled with tar that included a list of the dangerous and toxic ingredients in cigarettes. They also had a set of lungs from a pig to show how much damage smoking can do to a person's vital organs.

The organizers behind the anti-tobacco campaign recognize that it is difficult to convince a person who smokes regularly to quit. They take the tact that informing smokers about the dangers of smoking will get them thinking the next time they are offered a cigarette. The desired result is that people will choose to quit on their own, based on the information they have been given.

If a person considers that the principal at the school in Sanikiluaq estimates 75 per cent of his students smoke, and that the Department of Health's number are far above the national average, it becomes obvious that extreme actions are needed to get the message across.

Action taken by Tobacco Youth Action Teams in Sanikiluaq, Kugluktuk, Repulse Bay, Gjoa Haven and Iqaluit are good. But more efforts are required to deliver a message that cigarettes rob youth of their health and encourage them not to start smoking in the first place.

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