Hamlet kept jumping
Numerous projects, activities define summer in Rankin Inlet
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
RANKIN INLET
The summer of 2016 has been extremely busy for the hamlet of Rankin Inlet.
The Hamlet of Rankin Inlet focused part of its summer efforts on expanding space at the community dump to keep it operational for a few more years. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo |
Senior administrative officer Justin Merritt said the hamlet focused its efforts on the roads and local dump.
He said a berm was done at the back end of the dump, and a road built up well below what would be considered the middle of the dump to keep the facility viable.
"Instead of replacing the fence, we put a berm in to make it more level with the rest of the dump and to add more space for us to use," said Merritt.
"We spent about $180,000 - with most of that going on the berm because of the amount of gravel we had to haul - and did a lot of work at the dump.
"We'll continue using the dump until the Department of Community and Government Services (C&GS) comes up with a workable plan.
"Hamlet council has submitted a request to C&GS for either the minister or deputy minister to come meet with us sometime this fall, so we can get an idea of what the plan is to get us a new dump in the foreseeable future."
Merritt said there's enough available space at the dump to serve the community for the next couple of years.
He said the berm was also built to allow the road to be widened to add more space, but it's a temporary solution.
"We put our calcium down in June to help with the dust, and then we did general maintenance on the roads.
"We would have liked to have done them again in early August, but we just didn't have the heavy-equipment operators available to be able to accomplish that."
The hamlet has three full-time heavy-equipment operators who take staggered holidays during the summer.
Merritt said right up until this past year, it used to be no problem to get temporary replacements while the hamlet operators were out on holidays.
He said that changed this year due to the amount of freight Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) has been shipping to the Meliadine mine, and the amount of work the company has been doing there, making it very hard to find replacement operators.
"If we were hiring full time with benefits, we'd probably have no trouble finding operators, but it's very hard right now to get someone for just three months.
"I understand other companies have been having the same problem."
Merritt said following the sealift, the hamlet filled in potholes around the community before turning its attention to the big junk around the hamlet.
He said the hamlet is in the process of hauling old vehicles and other heavy metals to the dump that people no longer have any use for.
"We sent letters to everyone in the community, who we feel are not following the unsightly yard bylaw, to get them to clean up their yards.
"We also received enough funding this summer to make some significant improvements to what we provide for recreation."
Merritt said the hamlet received $50,000 for new playground equipment from C&GS and CLEY's Sport and Recreation Division (Sport Nunavut), which will be installed this month.
He said another $4,000 from Sport Nunavut and $2,000 from the local mixed softball league allowed the purchase of equipment to get more people out on the diamond this summer.
"We hired 10 students to work for eight weeks on our community cleanup, and another six to work for eight weeks helping with the 55 kids, aged five to 10, we had in our day camp.
"The money for those initiatives came from Kivalliq Partners in Development and AEM.
"We had a lot of money available to hire students this summer, with 22 to 24 of them working for the hamlet at any given time."
Merritt said the hamlet put in $15,000 with the $30,000 it received from AEM to host a summer fun weekend.
He said bouncy castles were rented for the summer fun weekend in 2015, but, when he saw the cost of shipping them back, he decided it would better for the community to have its own.
"We purchased three of them this year, including one really tall one with a big, big slide.
"They're ours now, so we'll always have them available, and there will be no more spending money to send them back after an event.
"We can set up the two smaller inside if we want to, and it's great to have them available for special events."
Merritt said pizza was bought and the two smaller bouncy castles set up during the final day of the drop-in centre's day camp for the children to enjoy.
He said buying the castles is going to work out well for the hamlet over the long haul.
"We also had our usual celebrations for Nunavut Day, Canada Day and Aboriginal Day, which were all well attended.
"So, it was a busy and well-organized summer of activities overseen by our recreation department and enjoyed by the community."
