SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
An expression of support for people who lost property in the Polaris apartment fire found its way to the dump this week.

Cynthia Grandejambe looks at a pile of donated clothing she collected for victims of the Polaris apartment fire, which has now found its way to the dump. - Evan Kiyoshi FrenchNNSL photo

Clothing that was gathered for fire victims on the lawn of Norseman apartments - a Northern Properties REIT-owned building two doors down from the three-storey building that burned to the ground June 14 - was folded and sorted on tables and racks.

According to the woman who spearheaded the collection effort, the clothing was taken to the landfill because the property owner was under pressure from the fire marshal to clear the lawn.

Cynthia Grandejambe, the 43-year-old who said she began collecting donated items by 9 a.m. on the morning of the fire because friends of hers had lost everything in the blaze, said a Northern Properties representative told her the donations had to move last week.

"They were saying that the reason why they wanted to get rid of it all was that the fire marshal was bothering them," she said.

"They didn't tell me where they were going to take it."

But Amy Simpson, manager of policy and planning with Municipal and Community Affairs, which oversees the office of the fire marshal, told Yellowknifer this was not the case.

"That type of order is not within the mandate of the fire marshal, and the office of the fire marshal would not have provided that information," she said.

Northern Properties did not return calls to Yellowknifer by press time. The company did publish an advertisement in Friday's Yellowknifer asking Polaris families to pick up what they needed from the lawn at the Norseman building by end of day last Sunday.

Anything that wasn't claimed would be either donated to the Salvation Army, the St. Patrick's Flea Market or would be taken to the salvage area at the landfill, it stated.

Resident Mary-Ann Doering said she was shocked to find clothing she'd given to the Polaris cause sitting at the landfill on Monday.

"We took a load of garbage to the dump ... and it blew my mind," she said.

"I donated 11 bags of clothes ... I would certainly have taken it somewhere else if I'd known where it would end up. It was pretty appalling. Even my husband was sitting there going 'why did we take our stuff there?'"

She said people can sift through the stuff at the landfill salvage area for now.

"But how long until that's just plowed under with the rest of (the garbage)?" she said.

Sheryl Rabesca - who used to live in the Polaris building - said she picked up clothing and household items from the lawn at the Norseman building for the first few days after the fire. She said she knows of some of her neighbours who were still picking up items on the last day before it was moved.

"There were still a lot of people going there," she said. "It didn't have to go to the dump."

Grandejambe said she was feeling upset while surveying the clothing she'd collected for two weeks discarded at the dump.

"Some of it was brand new, it still had tags on it," she said. "I don't feel good about it at all. I felt good (when they were taking the donations away) because I honestly thought it was going to the Salvation Army, to St. Pats. I thought it was going to useful places."

Yellowknifer contacted the Salvation Army but nobody was available to comment by press time.

Polaris stood at the corner of 52 Avenue and 49 Street and has yet to be torn down, although it cannot be entered.

- with files from John McFadden

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