After tussling for months over the divisive issue of junior kindergarten, the Government of the Northwest Territories has backed down – the program will not be coming to Yellowknife next fall. Premier Bob McLeod announced Thursday the roll out in Yellowknife and the larger communities would be paused until a comprehensive review of the existing
The total cost of fighting forest fires this past summer came in at a whopping $60 million, according to Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger. That’s $5 million more than the $55-million price tag previously reported and nearly nine times the $7 million budgeted at the beginning of the season. Miltenberger gave a detailed account of fire-fighting
Small business in Yellowknife is getting a boost after council voted in a business incubation and incentive program last night. The plan has six parts: Establishing an entrepreneurship mentorship program to connect business owners in Yellowknife with local and national mentors in the same industries. Increasing networking opportunities by partnering with the Yellowknife Chamber of
After years as antagonists, the NWT Floatplane Society and Latham Island Neighbourhood Association found common ground on Monday over waterfront development in Old Town. Lisa Scott and Hal Logsdon, Presidents of LINA and the Floatplane society, agreed the dilapidated dock and gravel lot on Wiley Road, just down from the Wildcat, should become a park
story and photos by Pat Kane I spent a few days this summer at Ykea, or more formally, The Yellowknife Solid Waste Facility. After chatting with salvagers and getting a sense of why this place is so important to Yellowknifers, I decided to take a few portraits of these dedicated rummagers. The dump is a
photos Angela Gzowski Each spring, Yellowknife Scouts slosh through the mushy ravine behind the Ski Club in search of dead bodies. Not the recently deceased kind; they’re on the hunt for femurs, vertebrae – and maybe skulls – of Yellowknife’s earliest pioneers. It sounds gruesome, but it’s not unusual for the Back Bay Cemetery to
New legislation to improve workplace safety has been gathering dust on Minister Jackson Lafferty’s desk for two years, says Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro, and workers may be less safe as a result. On Thursday, she demanded to know why the Minister Responsible for the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission hadn’t signed new occupational health
Flamin’ Raven | Special to EDGEYK.com and free for all In a surprising anomalous display of statistical improbability, the entire planet experienced a 24-hour period of peace, tranquility and a complete lack of fear in what scientists are calling “the perfect day.” Humans around the world awoke to perfect weather conditions for their respective locations,
The decision by Canadian North and First Air to abandon merger talks could end in reduced service to remote communities and underscores the need for government support for northern airlines, says industry analyst Rick Erickson. “Governments – Ottawa and the territories – need to step up,” said Erickson. Without the profits from the lucrative Yellowknife
After two decades of breathless announcements followed by minimal action, it might be hard to get excited about government conducting research into the NWT’s elusive 911 service. The City’s been at it since 1991, with little more than feasibility reports to show for it – the most recent, from 2009, came with a price tag
There’s a reason information dissemination needs to be centralized when a soldier and a gunman are shot in Ottawa, and there’s a collective, Canadian breath-holding going on. I woke up this morning to CBC radio’s live reports and heard a national reporter say all Canadian Forces bases across the country were in lockdown mode and
On EDGE: Opinion About the only thing that’s certain about the territorial government’s latest pipedream is the few who take the idea of exporting Alberta bitumen from a port on the Arctic coast seriously are happy a proposed pilot demonstration wasn’t tried this year. Not that next year promises to be better. Low water and
Bumps caused by permafrost thaw and subsidence beneath a former section of the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife | photos Julian Murton by Julian Murton and Stephen Wolfe With climate warming, changing vegetation, and recurrent forest fires, permafrost in many arctic regions has been warming or thawing, and these trends are likely to continue. The question
The current Yellowknife electoral boundaries map | produced for Elections NWT by the NWT Centre for Geomatics City council looks set to take the GNWT to court over Yellowknife’s under-representation in the legislative assembly. The four councillors present at Monday’s municipal services committee expressed interest in a legal challenge, though it won’t be discussed officially
Flamin Ravin’ | Special to EDGEYK.com After months of clamouring for sweeping changes to how the City provides services to residents, Yellowknife denizens experienced shock, fear and anger at the unveiling of a new waste-collection program. Last week, new black garbage bins – designed to streamline waste pick up and lower the cost of the