Friday, 10 May 2013

Fwd: Latest Scoops on NWT News



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From: Scoop.it <noreply@postmaster.scoop.it>
Date: 10 May 2013 21:50
Subject: Latest Scoops on NWT News



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EDMONTON - Atco is setting its sights on the potential for northern hydro projects and new transmission lines to energize natural gas production in booming northwestern Alberta and British Columbia. "The Alberta government has taken an interest in looking at hydro as a replacement for coal-fired generation, and we have been continuing our talks with First Nations in the Northwest Territories. And the Taltson project is one they are supporting," said Siegfried Kiefer, chief operating officer for Atco's energy and utilities division. The proposed Taltson dam project just north of the Alberta border is fairly small, able to generate 56 megawatts and situated adjacent to an existing 18 MW power plant built in the 1960s for a now-closed mine. The expansion is a joint venture with local aboriginal groups through Dezé Energy, and already has obtained all necessary permits to proceed. It would provide electricity for diamond mines north of Lesser Slave Lake that now rely on expensive diesel fuel, as well as add capacity for residential customers in the region, including Yellowknife..
Leela Gilday says the north exerts an almost gravitational pull when you're away from it. She should know: she moved south for university when she was 17 and ended up staying for 12 years to establish her musical career, something that's hard to do when based in the north. She returned to Yellowknife in 2008. She calls the north "a powerful place. It occupies your dreams and your daily thoughts. It's so vast, it makes you feel what your place is on the earth in a way you can't in the south. You feel small in the north." Feeling small occasionally, although Gilday doesn't say so, might be a valuable corrective to southerners' tendency toward self-importance. There's nothing small, however, about Gilday's music. A blend of folk, pop and country, it captures with vigour what it means to be a native person from the north (she's a member of the Dene First Nation).
Steve will work with Northern communities and partners to create and implement a strategic granting program that builds capacity and advances solutions to integrated social, cultural, environmental and economic challenges in the North. [...]
Stephen is a laureate of the inaugural Arctic Inspiration Prize. He serves as a member of the Environmental Monitoring Advisory Board for the Diavik Diamond Mine and a Director for the Dechinta Institute for Research and Learning. He previously chaired the Akaitcho Screening Board and was a long-standing Director of the Denesoline Corporation and a member of the NWT Protected Areas Strategy Steering Committee.
"I am thrilled that Steve Ellis has joined our team. He brings the right mix of experience, relationships and out-of-the box thinking that will help philanthropy to make the greatest and most positive impact in Canada's territories and Inuit regions," said McMillan.
For media inquiries please contact Alison Henning, Marketing and Communications Manager at alison.henning@tidescanada.org
To learn more and connect with Steve about our work in the North, you can reach him at steve.ellis@tidescanada.org
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Northern_Clips's insight:
The Darnley Bay property hosts North America's strongest isolated gravity anomaly, which has been favourably compared by the Geological Survey of Canada to other prominent gravity anomalies such as those at the prolific mining camps of Noril'sk in Russia and Sudbury basin in Ontario. It is located near Paulatuk, Northwest Territories, on the Arctic coast. The Darnley Bay anomaly is larger and stronger than any of these comparatives by a wide margin, measuring 100 kilometres long north to south and about 80 kilometres wide. The GSC discovered the anomaly in 1969, and its source has never been explained. The company has 100-per-cent control of its exploration and potential development subject to certain back-in and other rights of Inuvialuit Regional, which holds the land on which it occurs. 10
Since I generally refrain from watching television, I've never seen the popular reality show "Ice Pilots." So you could say I was flying blind when a book tied to the series popped up on my radar. ... "The Ice Pilots," by New Yorker-turned-Canadian author Michael Vlessides, is subtitled "Flying with the Mavericks of the Great White North." Would that this were true. In practice, very little time is spent airborne. Instead, most of the book is about Vlessides himself, his experiences in the North, his time spent running around the Buffalo hangar with the television stars, his drinking binges with the same crew, and his repeatedly dashed efforts at getting "Buffalo" Joe to open up for an interview, efforts that show Vlessides to be suffering from something a bit creepier than hero worship crossbred with a disturbing tendency toward self-flagellation. The hero worship actually extends to the whole crew, and is accompanied by relentless hyperbole talking up how unbelievably awesome everyone at Buffalo is. Just a sample quote demonstrates the ludicrous exaltation of it all: "To be a Buffalo pilot is to be resourceful. If there was ever a professional who had to mimic the 1980s television star MacGyver — the secret agent who could craft a neutron bomb out of a Swiss Army knife and some old cheese — it's the Buffalo Airways pilot." Wow. Now extend that out over 269 pages of text that just keeps stumbling over itself like a moose with its forelegs roped together, and you have a pretty good idea of how this book reads.
Her goal? Convince a major international cable network to see what she sees -- the frontier spirit evident in the independent community of houseboaters on Yellowknife Bay.
"I came up last year and shot some footage," said Haydn-Hays.
"I spoke to some of the characters out there about what the strategies are for living off the grid on the lake," she said.
This most recent visit was what she calls phase two, where the current footage gets edited into a mock one-hour show so the network can see what it would look like.
Ideally, the network would then green-light the production and agree to either a full one-hour show or a series of episodes.
Haydn-Hays is hesitant to compare her idea to Ice Pilots NWT or Ice Road Truckers.
"Every show has it's own different vibe," she said.
"This would be mostly about the challenges, the stakes involved and the character of the people behind the work. The frontier spirit is what drew me to the topic. They're living on their own terms, they're knowledgeable and it's like they're a boat captain, mechanic and engineer all in one."
While it's still a long way from coming to a small screen near you, Haydn-Hays said she's confident people will be interested in the topic.
"These are all things American audiences don't know about, they've never seen it. They don't have people living on frozen lakes," she said. 10
Public Attitudes Towards Devolution of Powers to the Government of the Northwest Territories SURVEY REPORT EKOS RESEARCH ASSOCIATES INC. March 2013 Outlined below are key findings and conclusions from this study. The survey results are broadly suggestive of a divided populace in the Northwest Territories with big differences in what Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal respondents think about the deal, their degree of support for the character of economic development that is promised by the devolution deal and the need for further public consultation. Smaller divides appear between newer arrivals to the NWT and more established residents. But these differences in perception are outweighed by the very strong public support for some further process of public consultations – nearly three quarters of survey respondents think further consultation is required. Given the recent vote by MLAs in the Legislative Assembly against a plebiscite, this is perhaps the most significant finding of this survey. Also notable is the publics' perception of the (economic) fairness of the deal – significant numbers of respondents are uncertain whether the NWT is getting a 'fair deal' in the re-division of resource revenues and control over lands and waters.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/135514882/Alternatives-North-EKOS-Poll-Public-Attitudes-Towards-Devolution-of-Powers
The Government of the Northwest Territories is completing negotiations with Canada to take over management of lands, waters and resources in the NWT. There are major concerns with the terms of the deal itself, and with the lack of Aboriginal Government participation as full partners in the negotiations.
Alternatives North is participating in public activities to promote debate on the devolution agreement, and to improve the quality of resource management that will be developed after the transfer of responsibilities.
http://alternativesnorth-ca.web33.winsvr.net/OurWork/Devolution.aspx

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