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At the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation conference taking place this week, Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Public Works Manager, Peter Campbell presented "Progress in Infrastructure 1995-2005: One First Nation's Experience" highlighting the work and changes that have occured over the years in Keewaytinook Okimakanak member First Nations (click here to view Peter's presentation). Denis Nault from the Keewaytinook Centre of Excellence also did a presentation about the Water Plant Operators' Training Program.

Click here to visit the conference web site to see all the different presentations and many of the powerpoint shows with the information about the topic. Some of the topics include:

• Financing a Home On-Reserve - Lori Rice, CMHC
• Residential Framing - Clive Higgins, Weyerhaeuser
• Preventing Moist Crawlspaces - David Rogne, EMERCOR
• Energy Pathfinder Program - Michelle Glena-Santos, Umbata Falls Small Hydro Project and Byron LeClair
• Protecting Water from Sewage & Wastewater - Claude Fortin, Environment Canada
• and much more

From their conference web site ...

10th Annual Technical Conference and Trade Show
August 15 - 18, 2005
Valhalla Inn, Thunder Bay, ON

Since 1995, when the Ontario Chiefs-in-Assembly provided our mandate, OFNTSC will celebrate over a decade of providing technical advisory services to all First Nations in Ontario. Our theme, “Much to be proud of - Much to be done,” embodies the essence of our successes over a ten-year period and sets the backdrop as we continue to strive for excellence in delivering technical advisory services and promoting self sufficiency to the 134 First Nation communities in Ontario.

Held in conjunction with the Aboriginal Water & Waste Water Association of Ontario (AWWAO) and Ontario Native Fire Fighters Society (ONFFS), we anticipate over 400 delegates the largest First Nation Technical gathering of its kind anywhere in Canada. This year's conference is unfolding into what promises to be a stimulating and exciting three day program that includes information packed workshops, an innovative trade show and an exhilarating fund raising golf tournament. In order to honor the past, celebrate the present and realize our future as a highlight to this conference we would like to invite you to a Gala dinner. This evening will be filled with fine dining, friends and entertainment, so please join us as we celebrate 10 years of successes!

WANTED:  HOMES AWAY FROM HOME

The first phase of the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel was completed yesterday with 102 submissions being received from consumers, community organizations, businesses, industry associations and telecom providers. All the submissions are available on-line (click here to view the list). Keewaytinook Okimakanak's highlighted the need for unite policies and programs that address the special needs of remote and rural communities. Click here to read Keewaytinook Okimakanak's submission.

The second phase of the Review Panel is now set up to begin accepting comments and arguements concerning the submissions received up to August 15. It is interesting to read some of the submissions from the groups in the cities that make statements such as "4.8 With respect to broadband for very remote and isolated rural areas across Canada, Industry Canada’s BRAND program appears to have been quite effective, but for rural areas close to metropolitan influence zones BRAND has been of no benefit at all. (OCRI, Page7)". There is going to be a lot of effort required to help the folks living their comfortable lives in the cities and near cities to understand the realities of living in remote and rural communities.

Everyone is now encouraged to write to the Panel and let them know that a two-way satellite connection that supports an internet connection (sometimes) is not really broadband. Remote and rural communities need broadband infrastructure that will carry video conferencing with quality of service that will support real interactive telehealth sessions with physicians!

The Telecom Review Panel was established by the Minister of Industry on April 11, 2005, to conduct a review of Canada’s telecommunications policy and regulatory framework. The Minister has appointed Dr. Gerri Sinclair, Hank Intven and André Tremblay as the members of the Panel. The panel is asked to make recommendations on how to move Canada toward a modern telecommunications framework in a manner that benefits Canadian industry and consumers.

The Toronto Star on August 15, 2005 as Why Broadband, Neutrality, Privacy Deserve Policy Boost - by Michael Geist ...

... The government must move to bridge this Canadian digital divide. Where cable and telephone providers are unwilling to offer commercial broadband services, federal, provincial and local governments should fill the void to ensure that all Canadians enjoy access to e-commerce, distance education opportunities, tele-health, and e-government services."

Globe & Mail  August 16, 2005 Page B5

Some of the country's top telephone companies are calling on the government to switch to a regulatory framework that leans more on market forces to guide competition, according to submissions addressed to a panel currently conducting a sweeping review of the telecommunications sector. 

The three-member panel is charged with identifying the pressing issues surrounding telecom policy by the end of the year. Interested parties had to hand in their proposals yesterday. 

From the submissions, it is clear cable and telephone companies remain on opposite sides of the regulatory fence. 

According to BCE Inc. and Telus Corp., current regulation is better suited to long-gone days when they were monopolies. The two companies insist competition will increase if there is greater reliance on market forces, saying regulation could be used when market power is abused.

"There's no reason to treat telecommunications differently . . ." Lawson Hunter, executive vice-president of regulatory affairs at Montreal-based BCE, said yesterday in an interview. "In other sectors of the economy you don't see anywhere near the degree of government oversight that you see in telecommunications." 

Of course new rivals, such as Rogers Communications Inc., see it differently. Toronto-based Rogers, which introduced local phone service last month, said current regulatory policies are adequately equipped to encourage competition. 

"We've got solid competition in the wireless market, long distance market, Internet market -- quite frankly every market except the local telephone market," David Watt, vice-president of business economics at Rogers, said in an interview. 

"We encourage the policy makers to stay the course, and hopefully competition will emerge in the local telephone market," he said.

The telecom panel is examining a wide range of issues, from how the industry is regulated to the adoption of information and communications technologies services or ICT. 

BCE stressed the importance of ICT, saying greater adoption will help narrow the productivity gap with the United States. 

Among BCE's proposals is to provide incentives to encourage businesses to invest in ICT. It also wants the government to act as a role model, using ICT in areas such as health care and education.

"ICT investments pay dividends in terms of business operations and the bottom line, yet Canadian companies, small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, have not embraced ICT to the extent they could and should," BCE said in a release. 

The review comes amid a sea change in the telecom industry. Internet protocol standards let companies like Rogers sell phone services over their cable systems, ushering in what could be the biggest competitive threat the phone firms have ever faced. 

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has opted to regulate the major carriers' new Internet-based calling products as it does their local phone services, a ruling the telcos are appealing. 

The CRTC, the federal communications regulator, embarked on a process earlier this year that will set the criteria for the eventual deregulation of the local phone market. But that's not fast enough for some. 

"Telus proposed that the government establish a panel to consider which telecommunications services should be deregulated immediately . . . ," the Vancouver-based company said yesterday in a release.

The Institute on Governance produced a Summary Report about the Regional Information Sharing sessions that were organized by INAC as part of their program review process. The report along with all the material distributed at the meetings is available on-line at the Chiefs of Ontario web site (click here to view the list of material).

From the report (Word document) ...

As part of its approval of the Long Term Capital Plan of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), the Treasury Board of Canada asked the department to undertake a comprehensive review of the Capital Facilities and Maintenance (CFM) Program. Such a review would also be an important element in the department’s seeking new authorities from the Board for this program.  ...

This report is the ‘National Summary’ mentioned above. Its purpose is to present the principal highlights of the regional workshops that departmental officials organized in March and April of 2005 as part of Phase II. These workshops, which were held in every region in Canada, had two main purposes. The first was to share the results of the Phase One analysis with First Nation experts; and the second, to develop some options for achieving better, more sustainable outcomes for further discussions with First Nation leaders.

From the conclusion ...

.... many participants expressed scepticism - in their evaluation forms as well as verbally at the end of the sessions - that anything positive would result from the workshops."

Neskantaga First Nation is hosting its Annual Summer Festival on the dates of Wednesday August 17th to Saturday August 20th. The Festival has been hosted in Neskantaga since 1977. We Invite all our members and visitors to come and visitors to join in the festivities that we will be hosting.

Some of our events will be:

• $30.000.00 Jackpot Bigfoot Bingo
• Green River Revival Band (CCR Tribute)
• Hillary Duff Tribute
• Native Hip Hop Group Team Rez Official
• CWF Wrestling
• $1000.00 Fishing Derby
• Slam Dunk Contest
• $5000.00 Texas Hold'em Tournament
• $1000.00 Canoe Race ( Male & Female)
• $1000.00 Square Dance Contest (Male & Female)
• $1000.00 Awesome Dancer (Male & Female)

Raffle Draw Top Prize:

• Touring Ski-doo GTX FAN 380F
  Or
• Honda Four Wheeler TRX 350FN 4X4
  Or
• $5000.00

A daily schedule has been attached below along with this bulletin.

For info, please contact:

Allan Moonias @ (W) (807) 479-2570 (807) 479-2600
or check out: http://neskantagarecreation2004.myknet.org

++++++++++++++++

Schedule

Day 1 - Wednesday August 17, 2005

9:00am - Fishing Derby (returning time 12:00pm)

1st - $1,000.00
(Entry fee: $25.00 per canoe)

9:00am - Free Breakfast (Neskantaga Point)

12:00pm - 20' Canoe Race (2 men & 2 ladies)

1st - $1000.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

1:00pm - Daily Games

4:00pm - Bingo ($1,000.00 Jackpot) ($30.00 for 9 to view)

6:00pm - Supper Break

6:00pm - Basketball Slam Dunk Contest (All Ages) $5.00 a person

9:00pm - 70's & 80's Rock'n'Roll Contest (must dress up like 70's & 80's) (Ages 14 and up)

Men's Ladies

1st - $400.00 1st - $400.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

$20 will be given to non winning participants in the R&R contest

(Age's 10 to 13) (Age's 9 and under)

Boys Girls Boys Girls
1st - $40.00 1st - $40.00 1st - $40.00 1st - $40.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

Day 2 - Thursday August 18, 2005

9:00am - Free Breakfast (Neskantaga Point)

9:30am - Texas Hold'em Tournament ($100.00 entry fee) first 40 to sign up

1st $5000.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

1:00pm - Daily Games

4:00pm - Bingo ($2,000.00 Jackpot) ($50.00 for 9 to view)

7:00pm - Loonies and Toonies Toss $1000.00 worth

8:00pm - Green River Revival Band (CCR Tribute) Concert

10:00pm - Dance Mix Contest

(Age Category Dance Contest)
Men/Ladies Men/Ladies Boys/Girls Boys/Girls
(14 to 27) (28 and over) (9 &under) (10 to 13)
1st - $200.00 1st - $200.00 1st - $40.00 1st - $40.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

Awesome Dancer Man/lady - $1,000.00 each

Awesome Dancer Boy/Girl - $100.00 each

Day 3- Friday August 19, 2005

9:00am - Free Breakfast (Neskantaga Point)

11:00am -20' Men's Canoe Race & Ladies Canoe Race

• Men's Ladies
  1st - $1000.00 1st - $1000.00
  (Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

1:00pm - Daily Games

4:00pm - Bingo ($3,000.00 Jackpot) ($80.00 for 9 to view)

6:00pm - Hilary Duff Tribute Concert

8:00pm - Green River Revival Band (CCR Tribute) Concert

11:00pm - Square Dance Contest

Men's Ladies
1st - $1,000.00 1st - $1,000.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

Boys/Girls Boys/Girls
(9 &under) (10 to 13)
1st - $40.00 1st - $40.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

Day 4 - Saturday August 20, 2005

9:00pm - Free Breakfast (Neskantaga Point)

12:00pm - Men's and Ladies Short Distance Race

Men's Ladies
1st - $100.00 1st - $100.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

1:00pm - Daily Games

4:00pm - Monster Bingo ($50,000.00 payout) $250.00 (12 to view booklet)

7:00pm - CWF Wrestling Show @ Arena

9:00pm - Square Dance Contest

Men Ladies
1st - $200.00 1st - $200.00
(Also 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes)

11:00pm - Raffle Draw

12:00pm - Dance Mix Contest

*Note:

Ticket Prices for the Concerts and Wrestling will be announced later.

Daily Games will be held at the Point, if raining it will be held at the Arena.

Transportation will be provided from airport to Neskantaga

Accommodation will be provided upon arrival.

"Enjoy The Festival"

Heritage Canada's Canadian Culture Online Program has posted a new call for proposals under their Gateway Program.  They are requesting that applicants forward this information to other groups to help ensure that this information is distributed as widely as possible to interested parties.

The Gateway Fund is a component of the Department of Canadian Heritage's Canadian Culture Online strategy (CCO), a framework to stimulate the development and production of Canadian cultural content on the Internet. Canadian Culture Online is pleased to announce a call for proposals under this fund that specifically targets the development of online access points that aggregate Canadian cultural content for educational purposes in the kindergarten to grade twelve (K-12) teaching environment, or the maternelle to secondaire teaching environment in Quebec.

 Projects funded under this call will develop online access points focussing on curriculum related themes that are relevant to K-12 studies, and maternelle to secondaire studies in Quebec, of a social and cultural nature, with advanced features that allow teachers to quickly search educational cultural content from multiple sources in a seamless manner, then easily identify and use the content that is relevant to their curricula.

The focus of this call is on the design and creation of these access points, and the coordination of parties that hold recently developed online educational cultural content. As such, the costs associated with the digitisation or development of cultural content will not be funded under this call.

Eligible applicants include Canadian not-for-profit and public sector (excluding federal organisations and crown corporations) organisations that are active in culture, education or other fields relevant to this call.

The application process for this fund has two stages: an Expression of Interest stage, and a Full Application stage.  The deadline for submitting Expressions of Interest is Tuesday, October 11, 2005.  A Full Application may only be submitted upon the request of Canadian Culture Online after review of all Expressions of Interest.

http://chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=28460

Chiefs press funding lawsuit

By Staff - The Chronicle-Journal

August 13, 2005

Sioux Lookout-area chiefs will move ahead on a day-care funding suit against the Chiefs of Ontario and the federal government.

The chiefs’ “political group” had put the civil court action on hold for 30 days to allow newly elected Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse time to put together a new funding package for remote First Nation day-care centres.

However, officials said Toulouse’s report to the Sioux Lookout Area Aboriginal Management Board’s (SLAAMB) annual meeting in Sioux Lookout this week “did not adequately address the (chiefs’) concerns and issues.”

Sachigo Lake First Nation Chief Alvin Beardy said in a news release that “our infrastructure does not meet the demands of our people or communities.”

“Our First Nations are severely under funded in all areas,” he said.

Big Trout Lake First Nation Chief Donny Morris explained earlier that “the decision to cut the SLAAMB funding from $538,928 to $300,006 came with no consultation, and after assurances from representatives of Human Resources Canada and the Chiefs of Ontario that its funding for the 2004-05 fiscal year would remain the same as the previous year.”

In a lawsuit filed in December, SLAAMB is seeking $250,000 in operating money and up to $23 million in capital funding for additional day-care facilities from Human Resources and the Chiefs of Ontario.

The day-care funding issue arose during negotiations between Sioux Lookout-area First Nations and Ottawa over financial support for employment and training services in 25 communities in Northwestern Ontario. While an agreement was reached in April, the chiefs said more talks were needed “to clear up a few outstanding issues.”

They include funding to meet program and service costs in remote communities; child care facilities; and the ongoing development of a government-to-government working relationship.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) has initiated an education policy and program review which includes a review of the Post Secondary Education (PSE) Program . Click here to view the material distributed for this review process (Word document).

The objective of the review for the PSE program is to develop a renewed policy and accountability framework for the Post-Secondary Education program. To this purpose, a joint Working Group has been established to undertake the review. The Working Group is composed of representatives from the Assembly of First Nations, the National Association of Indigenous Institutes of Higher Learning, the Labrador Inuit and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. In the course of the review the Working Group will examine a number of issues such as goals and objectives of the program, roles and responsibilities, the types of transitional preparatory programming are beneficial for student success at PSE, program funding and program management.  The Working Group has agreed to undertake some of the work with the support of consultants.

We are inviting you to submit  proposals for the review of the Goals & Objective of the program and/or the transitional / preparatory programming pieces. Your proposals should include information on your credentials and how you meet the requirements to carry out the work. Please provide relevant work done in the area for which you are submitting the proposal. Your proposals should also identify tasks, time assigned for each task as well as the costs associated with each task. The contractor is expected to deliver a written report that addresses all of the issues identified in the attached description of work for each of the two separate contracts. Only the successful candidate will be contacted. If the contract is awarded the GST number and/or your social insurance number will be required. Attached here for your reference are the research principles to guide the contractors work as well as a bibliography of relevant material.

If you are interested in being considered, please forward us your proposal by 5PM (eastern time) on Friday, August 30, 2005. Please e-mail your proposal to

Margaret Mitchell at jedburgh@primus.ca
Tiziana Carafa at carafat@ainc-inac.gc.ca

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Marie Saint-Pierre Larose, INAC co-chair
Dawn Maracle, AFN Co-chair

The following article was published in The Ottawa Citizen this week (August 11). Their definition of "broadband" is more about commerical internet service offering wireless connections. This commerical service is different than the type of service being provided in northwestern Ontario but many of the uses and challenges for these connections are the same ...

Broadband comes to the North
(Part 1): High-speed satellite links will bring Canada's remote communities into the 21st century. It's about time, say residents

by Jeff Buckstein, The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday, August 11, 2005

Tucked into a jagged glacier carved fiord off the aquatic rich Cumberland Sound in southeastern Baffin Island, the village of Pangnirtung, population 1,276, is nestled on a tundra flat flanked by majestic granite mountains towering up to 1,000 metres. It seems like one of the most remote communities on earth.

But the large satellite dish on the picturesque hamlet's western shore symbolizes a very different scenario. Newly connected state-of-the-art 2.5 GHz wireless broadband technology provides Pangnirtung and 24 other fly-in communities in Nunavut, who are connected to a network called QINIQ -- named after the Inuktituk root word for search -- with vital high-speed Internet access to the outside world and to each other.

The residents of Pangnirtung (which means "place of the bull caribou'') are excited about the effect high-speed broadband access might have on their personal and business lives. Mika Etooangat, 21, has already noticed several significant improvements over dial-up access. "I can download music a lot quicker, and it's great for instant e-mail and chatting with friends. Before when I used dial-up, it was not only slower but would sometimes disconnect on its own,'' says the assistant senior administrative officer of the Pangnirtung Hamlet Office & People's Community Centre.

Peter Wilson, general manager of the Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts, which sells Inuit artifacts around the world, including soapstone carvings, prints, and tapestries, is bullish on the potential economic advantages broadband access to the Internet will present. He plans to have an e-commerce website up and running before the end of the year. And he's also looking at broadband-enabled, voice over Internet protocol telephony.

"Long-distance telephone charges for business are so high here. But with voice over IP, we could end up paying a lower fee and, if all is working well, have better sound quality, too. That's a real important way broadband can improve business telecommunications not just in Pangnirtung, but throughout Nunavut as well,'' he says.

Donna Copeland, manager of the town's Auyuittuq Lodge, also has dreams for broadband access. Her lodge houses many of the region's backpackers before and after their trek through the pristine Auyuittuq National Park (translation -- "the land that never melts''), site of the 5,100 square-kilometre Penny Ice Pack glacier and many of Nunavut's highest mountain peaks. She'd like to have the service available for cruise ship passengers -- seven ships will visit Pangnirtung this summer, for instance -- to be able to come into her motel and get quick access to their office and personal e-mail.

Copeland already enjoys broadband Internet access personally, calling it a "godsend'' in part because it features speed "that is just phenomenal.'' The 19-year resident of Pangnirtung signed up for a broadband connection in her home at the first opportunity last winter when she volunteered to sample one of the new modems, several months before they went live to the rest of the hamlet.

She became an instant convert. "Dial-up served a purpose, but now that I can compare the two, there's really no comparison,'' Copeland says. "Broadband offers the power and speed I need to complete my transactions.''

The fact wireless broadband access has been deployed across Nunavut at all is, in and of itself, a magnificent technological feat. At 1.994 million square kilometres, Canada's newest territory occupies one-fifth of Canada's total area. But it is isolated. Only about 30,000 people inhabit this vast, mostly pristine space, whose largely treeless landscape sparks to life in the perpetual light of summer, sporting brilliant hues of tiny purple and yellow flowers like Purple saxifrage and Arctic poppies on its hillsides.

The population is dispersed over 25 communities and three time zones. Approximately 7,000 live in the capital Iqaluit (meaning "place of many fish''), near the southern end of Baffin Island.

Travel from one community to the next is usually only possible by air. Some ports also have a limited shipping season (generally from July to October in the Eastern Arctic). Only two communities -- Arctic Bay and Nanisivik, some 20 kilometres apart at the northern end of Baffin Island -- are connected by road.

How then, did wireless broadband Internet access become a territorial-wide reality?

One of the early visionairies was Adamee Itorcheak, who founded a small Internet Service Provider company named Nunanet Worldwide Communications Inc. in August 1995. "Adamee has worked tirelessly not just for Iqaluit, but all Nunavut access, for so long,'' says Lorraine Thomas, secretary-treasurer of the Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation. "Adamee had a vision of this wireless connectivity scenario in the late 1990s when nobody else had a clue about it, and he has devoted a lot of his energy, time and money into it.''

Itorcheak, a native of Iqaluit who in 2001 was named to the National Broadband Task Force, painstakingly built his business to help give Nunavut's capital city a leg up on technology when the new Territory officially came into being on April 1, 1999. But only 10 other communities in Nunavut at that time had Internet connectivity -- and that was mostly confined to government workers, many of whom heralded from southern Canada.

Despite the efforts of a few pioneering ISPs such as Nunanet, Sakku Arctic Technologies in Rankin Inlet, and PolarNet in Cambridge Bay, there weren't many cost-effective Internet services available to the Inuit people at that time, who comprise about 85 per cent of Nunavut's population. But things began to look up when the federal government signaled its intention of connecting Canada's North to the high-speed information freeway.

Industry Canada announced ia subsidy program in October 2000 (which many believed would have cost at least $1 billion), for the goal of providing all Canadian communities with high-speed broadband access by 2004. This was quietly shelved and replaced by the $105-million Broadband for Rural and Northern Development (BRAND) program in September 2002.

In 2001, the Nunavut Broadband Task Force was established as a local conduit to the National Broadband Task Force so that the fledgling territory's voice could be heard. It made 27 recommendations before completing its mandate, and was succeeded by the not-for-profit Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation (NBDC) in 2003. NBDC's initial job, in part, was to oversee implementation of several key recommendations from the territorial Task Force, including one calling for affordable, easy access to broadband services for residents of all communities, no matter how remote.

"When you actually do the math on how much it costs to put in a satellite infrastructure to, say Grise Fiord (Canada's northernmost settlement, with a population of less than 200 on Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic) versus Iqaluit, then compare that to the number of possible users and divide it on a per-capita cost, no business person would have connected Grise Fiord,'' Thomas points out.

But consistent with the Task Force's recommendation, the project wasn't assessed on a pure business model basis. All communities were connected, and basic broadband subscriptions for all users are now equitably priced at $60 a month across Nunavut. This equality exists in spite of the special challenges and costs that were involved to make high speed access a reality in the most remote communities.

Another major responsibility of NBDC is to ensure that broadband access enhances economic development within Nunavut. One strategy designed to fulfill this is by having community service providers (CSP) located in each of the Territory's 25 venues, thus ensuring some of the subscription revenues stay within the community.

In Pangnirtung, for instance, the Uqqurmiut Inuit Artists Association is the local CSP, represented by Wilson and craft gallery supervisor Jackie Maniapik of the Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts. The CSPs in all 25 communities collect a margin of approximately 20 per cent of gross revenue for their endeavours. In return, they assist customers hook up their modems (which requires a downpayment of $150), and act as the initial troubleshooter should any problems occur.

NBDC also tendered bids for a contractor to build both the satellite infrastructure, and provide the so-called "last mile'' hooking up all houses and buildings to the satellite dish within communities. SSI Micro Ltd. of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, was awarded the contract for both those jobs in May 2003.

Although located in the neighbouring territory, SSI Micro had previous experience in Nunavut. In fact, they'd previously built satellite infrastructure in ten communities, including each of Nunavut's three regional capitals -Iqaluit, for the Baffin Region, Rankin Inlet, for Keewatin and Cambridge Bay in Kitikmeot, so those were among the first communities targeted for deployment.

The logistics of laying satellite infrastructure for the other 15 communities posed a number of significant challenges, admits Ryan Walker, manager of the solutions group at SSI Micro. "One of the toughest parts of building these sites was getting the civil work done. The satellite dish is 4.5 metres, so it's got quite a wind load on it, and you need a fairly sturdy foundation to handle that,'' he says.

Moreover, the weather was often a major thorn in the side. Nothing moves in a blizzard, and accommodations are notoriously expensive in Nunavut because of supply and demand, so SSI Micro faced extra costs of about $250/night per person when forced to keep crews weathered in for days at a time.

Even when equipment did move during the construction phase in 2004 and 2005, things didn't always go according to script. "The biggest surprise we had was when our dish for Clyde River showed up in Grise Fiord, which is of course the most inaccessible, furthest away community you can imagine,'' Walker says, adding that it took about one and a half months to charter an airplane to get the extra dish moved to its proper destination.

Improvisation was often the order of the day, too, when smaller communities didn't have all the necessary equipment for installation. In one, SSI Micro's crew had to set up an artificial pulley system using a long gin pole at the end of a loader in order to get the elevation required to put the satellite dish in place.

There was also pressure from the federal government -- as a condition of its $3.885 million in funding -- to complete the project in one year, rather than two as originally planned. To meet the new March 31, 2005 installation deadline, SSI Micro had to order equipment a year earlier in order to ensure it would be aboard the sealift barges in time. There was little or no margin for error given the brief shipping season in the southern Arctic, and even shorter one in the higher latitudes where some communities can only expect one boat a year -- provided the ice breaks up enough to let it through safely.

Today however, with approximately $10 million having been spent to put the infrastructure in place as a resulting of funding from all three levels of government and private business, 2.5 GHz wireless broadband has become a reality across the Territory, with most of the smaller communities having joined the QINIQ network between May and July of this year. Concerns about whether this technological feat could really be pulled off have been replaced by the hopes and dreams of residents across Nunavut.

In Sanikiluaq, a town of about 700 in the Belcher Islands about 165 kilometres west of Quebec in Hudson Bay (territory belonging to Nunavut), Bob McLean, manager of Sanny Internet Services, is the hamlet's CSP. He helped establish a website listing various local artists' carvings, entitled Soapstone Artists of Sanikiluaq, back in 1998. The site subsequently became e-commerce enabled to sell Inuit art over the Internet to clients all over the world. He hopes the new broadband capacity will provide a much more cost-effective and quicker means for customers to transact through that website.

Darrell Ohokannoak is the manager of PolarNet, an ISP based in Cambridge Bay, capital of Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region, located on Victoria Island some 300 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.

Only about 15 per cent of Cambridge Bay's 1,400 residents are connected to the Internet, but those who've chosen to take advantage of broadband access are "excited it's finally here,'' says Ohokannoak, who also chairs the NBDC board of directors.

Subscribers in the distant northern community are using it in much the same fashion as their counterparts in the south -- online shopping for items like electronics and clothing, online games such as poker, and Internet booked flights, hotels and car rentals for vacations outside Nunavut.

Broadband makes things much easier for members of such a remote community, not only because the service is much faster, but also significantly more affordable. "Before when we had to buy our bandwidth, it was really, really costly and we could only afford so much. To cover that bandwidth, we had to charge customers a rate probably 50 times higher than in the south, but we'd probably be 100 times slower because of our small population and base of users,'' Ohokannoak says.

In Cape Dorset, in southwest Baffin Island, Jim Williams is taking advantage of broadband access to teach an introductory business course at Fanshawe College in London, Ont. The newly appointed training and development officer with the Government of Nunavut's Department of Community and Government Services moved to Nunavut from southern Ontario in April 2005.

"I was teaching that course when I came up here, and (Fanshawe) asked me if I'd finish it online,'' he says. "When I first came up, we didn't have broadband, and (trying to do) that was awful. You would eventually get through (via dial-up) but it just took so long. Now with broadband access, it's so much easier. You can get back to students right away; it's phenomenal,'' he adds.

In Sanikiluaq, housing foreman Arthur Lebsack of the QAMMAQ Housing Association, who is responsible for inspecting all public housing maintenance in the hamlet, says broadband access to the Internet for such activities as pricing materials has saved him a considerable amount of time inside the office. This, in turn, allows him to get out in the field more to inspect buildings and "take care of the men I'm responsible for.''

The only downside to broadband access, Lebsack jokes, is that it gives him less time to satisfy his caffeine fix. "With dial-up, you could go out for coffee and then come back into the room,'' he laughs.

Broadband access could also potentially enhance the educational experience by allowing for greater online interconnectivity between students in schools within Nunavut and the rest of Canada, as well as for professional development of teachers, according to Murray Horn, Iqaluit based director of corporate services for the Government of Nunavut's Department of Education.

Broadband technology could also allow a specialized teacher based elsewhere to supplement secondary school instruction in a particular subject area such as physics to a remote community, where there might only be a single teacher to cover all subjects and perhaps multiple grades as well, he adds.

"I think we're limited only by our imagination in terms of what we can do with this technology,'' Horn says.

Another important civil application will be to improve municipal operations through shared knowledge. For instance, municipalities within Nunavut often experience a rapid turnover of knowledgeable staff in senior level positions, particularly those that involve southerners, who only tend to stay in Nunavut for a few years. Thus, each new person, particularly in a remote community, tends to "reinvent the wheel because they don't have access to what the other municipalities are doing,'' Thomas says.

"A new senior administrative officer (SAO) in Kimmirut, for example, may have no idea how to handle water truck delivery and sewage management. They'll run into a whole series of problems that other municipalities solved long ago. If they've never done it, how do they connect with other SAOs to figure out how? The way out is to provide training opportunities for people who live there,'' and broadband access will "connect these communities via the Internet in a useful way,'' she adds.

Another potential application in the planning stages is to provide residents of Nunavut with a geo-science software program that will give them satellite images of the Territory, which can in turn be further scaled down in considerable detail. This is especially important in a culture whose traditional activities are intensely land-based, such as hunting and fishing. Moreover, the Inuit people must first be consulted by business and government with respect to proposed commercial activities such as mining or oil drilling because of the potential environmental impact such activities could have on animal migration routes or other matters of importance to their traditional way of life.

For broadband access to ultimately succeed in Nunavut, admits Itorcheak, there will be a nurturing period involving a lot of trial and error and growing pains. "It's like with a newborn, where it takes time to learn to crawl, then to walk, then to run. Eventually people will pick up on it like they did with video and desktop conferencing. You can do a lot of different things, but it will take time,'' he says.

In the process, he adds, it is important that the traditional knowledge of the Inuit culture be respected and not completely trumped by technology. For instance, no matter what computer models say, there is no substitute for the experience of hunters who've passed down oral knowledge about things such as routes to avoid because of ice shifting at various times of the year.

"We've got to incorporate what we've learned about technology into our communication, but at the same time, keep in the back of our minds that we cannot abandon everything we learned from our parents and forefathers. We must also take into account traditional knowledge,'' Itorcheak says.

Cat Lake First Nation Website is now online, although it's uncompleted at the moment. There still needs to be info added to various menus on the website. Don't forget to sign the guestbook before you move on from the site.

http://catlake.firstnation.ca