This has been a hectic and very sad week for my family and me. The young fellow Anthony Menacho who passed away last week in Fort Providence came as a real shock to my family.

My daughter-in-law, Tanya, and his mother Verna were best friends. The family went to give support and to attend the funeral. I stayed behind, went out for supper on Easter, came home to a message on my phone. You know, sometimes you hear a message and you know what it is about before the message is finished. It was Audry Enge, I could tell by the first words of her voice what it was about, her mother Anne Enge White has left us. She was my most lovable, dearest friend. It hits you very hard, even though you know its coming. I am definitely going to Yellowknife to attend her funeral on Saturday and to be with her wonderful family, she definitely did her job as a mother, her sons and daughters are all professionals with degrees.

She attended university in Calgary and after four years she graduated with a bachelor's of social work. Then, one day, she met this Newfoundlander, Charlie. It must have been love at first sight for Charlie, he courted her very persistently. Knock, knock on the door, there was Charlie, with fresh roses in hand, she tried to get rid of him, but Charlie wouldn't give up. Knock, knock on the door, there was Charlie again with roses! She finally put up with him, he was so good to her, especially the last few years - she learned to love him as years went by. They got married last fall. Charlie is one of a kind. We will all love him forever, for his love and kindness to Anne.

I tried to get Anne some recognition, but in these organizations it's who you know if you want to get in. She sure would have outshone many of those recipients, but, you know me, I never give up. I have one woman besides Ann whom I think should be recognized. She has passed on, but we can do it posthumously, we must do that!

I am not really myself tonight, I have a deadline to meet!

I'm sitting here listening to music, Susan Boyle, you all heard about her beautiful voice, Andrea Bocelli, Kenny Rogers, there is nothing like music to soothe the soul.

The Chamber of Commerce will be busy in Yellowknife on April 14 and 15 - I hope it really looks at the big question of Arctic sovereignty. Nunavut and the eastern region is not more important than our western region, the federal government seems to concentrate all of its efforts on the Eastern Arctic.

We are the real back door to the Arctic region with our mighty Mackenzie River. The world and its billions and billions is over-populated and its people are not only looking for oil and gas, they need land and more land. Who has the most fertile undeveloped land on earth? Canada and in the Northern regions.

We can't sit and daydream that we are so lucky, we are in a very different world today, a scary world. Plus, we have a government in Ottawa that has no clue about, not only the three territories, but it has no clue about the northern part of the provinces, where most of the reserves are. No highway either. The poor people must fly into their region, where you hear and read about polluted water, etc. Our government in Ottawa only cares about votes and all of its votes come from big cities located along the American border, just look at your maps. The world is sleeping, they are eying Canada. As I have said many times: you can't live in the Philippines, they are running out of space to plant rice. The same with Japan.

The world is simply over populating and land will be more important than oil and gas or diamonds, etc.

Our government has for years and years done scientific research and completed the polar continental shelf projects and Arctic research with its umpteen scientists and the Rangers, but it is a different world now. The ice is melting in the Arctic Ocean, we don't want to have a rude awakening some day, do we? Time for people and organizations to start thinking and I'm thinking the Chamber of Commerce meeting should send a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that Arctic sovereignty is not only in the east, it is in the west at the mouth of the Mackenzie River. We should start a movement in the west to be updated on what the other countries are doing and who is snooping around in the Arctic region.