Wow, things are looking up for us in the Sahtu region. First Air, the third largest airline in Canada, started flying into Norman Wells on May 31. It is a welcome sign of relief to know that we have a choice - can you imagine. First Air is entirely owned by Makavik, a company owned by the Inuit in Nunavik, located on the tip of Northern Quebec! Canadian North is owned by the Inuvialuit and Inuit from Nunavut and the Beaufort Sea region!

These people are truly business minded - they hire the best people no matter who they are, and they train their own people under experts. Not like their cousins, the Dene. The Dene had more and better opportunities to get into business, but they are too busy playing politics, or they must take it back to their people for input, an exercise they never carry out! The Inuit are different - when they are elected as leaders they lead, especially in business. It is mind boggling, all of the businesses they own and the control while the Dene are too cautious. Meanwhile, the business world is passing them by and the Inuit participate fully with the chamber of commerce. You very seldom see Dene at chamber meetings. I went to one chamber of commerce meeting years ago in Rankin Inlet and to my surprise over half of the members at this meeting were Inuit and some even spoke in their language - very impressive!

By the way, talking about meetings, any meeting, it is surprising that no one seems to invest in audio - it is very frustrating to go into meetings where people talk to the person next to them or are reading something, while a person is speaking at the podium. It is because they cannot hear the person. In this day of technology, why can't people invest in battery powered microphones, the ones you can just pass around if someone wants to speak and maybe some ear phones.. Even a sophisticated town such as Norman Wells has zero in audio.

While on the subject, does anyone know a speech therapist? If anyone is going to be in the public eye, they should check their voices, plus your vocabulary may need improvement! The majority of people need it, we all get sloppy sometimes - unless you are perfect.

In the May 31 issue of News/North the headline, New office opens in Yellowknife, to offer help to businesses - they should have done that years ago. As soon as the aboriginals, especially the Dene, started to become political along with their friends, the environmentalist. They are going to spend $50 million over five years, with 10 staff, etc. etc. What happened to the pipeline office? Where they threw in $10 million right off the bat. You don't hear about that anymore. You people keep an eye on this new office! It is your tax money, you know?

Good to see Dennis Patterson as the new senator for Nunavut, he and our senator Nick Sibbeston used to be MLAs together, when the NWT and Nunavut were one territory. I understand a lot of people in both territories wish we never split the territory - we may as well have stayed one territory.

You see many Inuit people in Yellowknife and business and government dealings are still going on between the two territories - the east costs way more than the west, because of the many islands, we are lucky in the west.

By the way, I love the community gardening in Hay River, everyone planting and caring for their own plot, while they visit each other and compare cabbages and lettuce, exchanging recipes and gossiping a little. It sounds cozy!

All of the communities should try that, get to know people it will keep you from getting bored or lonely, maybe find or learn something new, like canning vegetables - never know until you try!