The mining advisory board wants, first and foremost, to keep mining interests happy The territorial government has come to resemble Ottawa under Stephen Harper in its love of secrecy and willingness to move forward on issues without consultation, says MLA Bob Bromley. “It’s all very presumptive and Ottawa-like,” Bromley told EDGEYK. com after receiving ITI
It’s the Amazon of the North, but how do we keep the tar sands from destroying it? | Map courtesy Govt. of Alberta The NWT-Alberta transboundary water agreement won’t slow development of the tar sands, the largest single threat to water quality in the Mackenzie Basin. Michael Miltenberger was clear on that point when he
Photo by Samantha Stuart “Hi, you’ve reached Nicole Garbutt, owner of Nicole Garbutt Makeup Artistry, president of The Northern V Network, co-chair of It Gets Better Yellowknife and festival co-ordinator of Ramble and Ride. Please leave your name, number, and, obviously based on this message, what you are calling about, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.”
There’s really only one place in Yellowknife this could happen. I had just filled up my thermos with coffee and was in line to pay. The only guy in front of me was fumbling through his pockets to dig out a handful of change, swaying, but stubbornly keeping his feet planted. He didn’t have enough change, so he uncrinkled a 50-dollar
Many an arched eyebrow greeted news reports that China is pondering the establishment of a research base in Tuktoyaktuk. In a piece by former Yellowknifer Nathan Vanderklippe, the Globe and Mail quoted two ranking Chinese polar scientists musing that Tuk would make a good location to set up a station to study climate change and,
The federal government has undergone an 11th hour change of heart and is withdrawing from its legal defense of the so-called superboard, opening the way for continuation of the current regulatory system in the Northwest Territories. The Sahtu Land and Water Board and the Wek’eezhii Land and Water Board that were to be dissolved today,
So the GNWT wants to know what you think about oil and gas development. Well, not really. The online survey it posted last week is more about convincing the public that the territory’s economic future lies with getting stranded oil and gas out of the ground and into the marketplace. To do that, we need
The finance department is still unable to answer some key questions abut jobs that have left Yellowknife Recent media reports on the government’s decentralization project have surprised Wendy Bisaro. The Frame Lake MLA asked Michael Miltenberger early on in the last legislative session just how many jobs had moved from Yellowknife to the communities. The
There’s been a lot of ink spilled in the last week about the retirement of Canada’s finest-to-date basketball export Steve Nash. For much of the basketball press the focus is deservedly twofold. First, the numbers. Nash retires as one of the greatest shooters to ever play the game. He is the greatest free-throw shooter in
Consensus government in the NWT: whispers in closed offices and cynical half-measures Premier Bob McLeod’s release of a partial list of his meetings with lobbyists without revealing the purpose or what was discussed made it an empty gesture, and revealed his distaste for the idea of open and accountable government. Consensus governance, with McLeod at the
Most of you know there’s an industry making its way into the Northwest Territories called fracking. Fracking is likely a word you’ve heard in the context of either economic glory or environmental catastrophes. It’s a politically polarizing, community-dividing topic. Which makes it an important issue to get to know better. Since the basic facts and
I’m going to go out on an editorial limb and say that food is good. I dream of a shopping cart piled high with exquisitely marbled steaks, crisp, green spinach and bricks of halloumi cheese. Hell, throw some kale in there. But of course we live in the North, a region known for the frequent
Even Spock-ified money doesn’t go as far as it should in the NWT these days | Illustration courtesy the Internet Last-minute declines in gasoline and fuel oil prices helped the Northwest Territories show a cost of living increase of just under the one percent national average for 2014, but if potential immigrants look more closely,
Let’s start by getting the disclosure out of the way: under the terms of the CRTC’s ruling this week on Northwestel’s internet rates, I am one of the winners. The commission ruled Wednesday that Northwestel must reduce the cost of its DSL internet service by 10 to 30 percent, depending on the package. It also
Whooping cranes entered my consciousness sometime around 1954, the year the rare and mysterious bird was finally traced to its summer nesting grounds in a boggy corner of Wood Buffalo National Park, a place then as distant and mysterious to me as the Amazon rainforest. The occasion was a visit to my Balcarres, Saskatchewan school