When hunter Joe Nasogaluak is out on the land, he often looks towards Tuktoyaktuk’s sprawling field of pingos to help him find his way.
Even as a child, the ice-cored hills acted as a navigation point, as they appeared like many snowy (or grassy, depending on the time of year) volcanoes, peppered around pools of water on an otherwise flat landscape. They’re a landmark for most people growing up around the NWT community.
“When we were young kids hunting ptarmigan, our parents would tell us, ‘Don’t go outside of where the pingos are,’” he says. “I was told that then and I still tell my kids that today.”
Fear and loathing: How neighbour turned on neighbour in the N W T s first pandemic month cbc.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cbc.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Chickens have very defined personalities, it turns out. Whenever Ray Solotki opens the shipping container-turned-coop outside Inuvik’s Community Greenhouse, one of her 22 hens will rush over and flatten itself down, eager to be picked up.
“They’re kind of like little dogs,” says Solotki, town councillor and executive director of the greenhouse. “I’m very attached to them, but I also would eat them. That’s just the reality.”
It was also the original plan for the birds. Last year, with funding from the United Way, Solotki and her team flew up 22 chickens to the hub of the Beaufort Delta. The birds would lay eggs while the sun was shining, provide fertilizer for the greenhouse and then be turned into soup come winter (to be donated to Inuvik’s homeless and warming shelters).
Posted: Feb 25, 2021 6:00 AM CT | Last Updated: February 26 Sufficient aftercare services are not available to people returning from southern addictions treatment, says MLA Frieda Martselos.(Mario De Ciccio/Radio-Canada)
N.W.T. MLAs seek a slew of mechanisms to improve addictions treatment in the territory including aftercare and permanent funding for harm reduction measures like managed alcohol.
Thebacha MLA Frieda Martselos said there are no adequate aftercare programs to support people in their recovery. She wants three facilities staffed with mental health workers built in the South Slave, central N.W.T. and the Beaufort Delta to provide those programs. With the structure and routine suddenly gone, when they return home, people can easily slip back into their addictions, she said.
Posted: Feb 22, 2021 7:00 AM CT | Last Updated: February 22
The Northwest Territories COVID-19 Secretariat is leasing this vehicle for enforcement officials in the Beaufort Delta region. The company that is leasing the vehicle is partly owned by a senior government official in the region.(Submitted)