Consilium/ARDOS/Aarluk: Our Times

DATE: August, 2008 ISSUE: 75

Our Featured Celebration

This being the month of August

It is only right and fitting that we must

Use this opportunity to promote and show it

That August has been declared Month of the Bad Poet

So forgive this stilted phrasing, wretched scansion and these awful rhymes

And know their cause is not want of Art, but just a sign of the month, or more generally the times.

(Hat Tip to William Topaz McGonagall, 1825-1902 widely acknowledged to be the World’s Worst Poet, pictured above.)

NEW FACES

Welcome to the latest edition of the Consilium Junior Consultants’ League, brought into the fold by Patti Black. Brian (named after daddy Scott’s father and great-grandfather) was born on July 2, at 4:19 pm at Kingston General Hospital, weighing 7 lbs 2 oz., and is by all accounts a healthy, very serene little fellow. (Pictured left: Aurora, Patti, Brian, Scott, and Ben)

NEW PROJECTS

For the fourth consecutive year, Aarluk will be supporting delivery of courses as part of the highly successful training program operated by the Municipal Training Organization. Originally designed and implemented by Consilium General Manager Chuck Gilhuly, the MTO program addresses a wide range of training and professional development needs of hamlet employees right across Nunavut. This year Ron Ryan and Dave Boult will be teaching Community Economic Development Officer courses in Rankin and Iqaluit; Dave will also teach two courses for Recreation Leaders in Cambridge Bay and Iqaluit. Marla Limousin Is teaching Planning and Lands Administration in Cambridge Bay and Rankin.

ONGOING PROJECTS

Ron Ryan has a knack for travelling to the nicest places at the right time of year. Ron spent a week of sunshine, golf, and – oh, yeah, some work - in Happy Valley Goose Bay, Nunatsiavut, working with the Torngat Regional Housing Association (Board and Staff) to develop a consolidated policy and procedures manual for the administration of public housing in the new territory. David Boult and Terry Rudden will be working with Ron on the actual policies, but of course, as project manager, he gets to scoop all the cool travel.

2030 NORTH: a National Planning Conference. Hosted by CARC, ITK and CMSS (the University of Alberta’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies), planning for this highly-anticipated event is well underway. A website is now available for conference information and registration. Log on to http://www.2030north.carc.org/ to check it out, or contact Conference Coordinator Patti Black, black@consilium.ca for more information.

Through Aarluk, a project team has been assembled to complete an evaluation of the Gas Tax Fund in Nunavut on behalf of the Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee and Infrastructure Canada. The project is being led by Alex Ker with participation by Chuck Gilhuly, Chris Cloutier, Greg Smith as well as Iqaluit-based Denis Simard. The project is part of a national evaluation of the Gas Tax Fund expected to be completed by March 2009. Gas tax funds target environmentally sustainable municipal infrastructure investment as part of the New Deal for Cities and Communities.

Greg Smith, Jennifer David and Alisa Lombard have completed drafting the research tools for a Process and Impact Evaluation of the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO). Interviews and data collection by the Stonecircle team will start in September.

Entering brilliantly into the spirit of the month, Alex Ogden Ker provides the following update on Consilium’s work in supporting Sagamok Anishnabek in preparing for mining development:

On Visiting Inco’s South Mine

Nothing can dim a summer day’s shine,

Quite like a tour of Inco’s Copper Cliff Mine.

One July day Sagamok’s mineral team did it,

With curiosity and angst, descended within it,

And came back to the surface, thankfully ‘live.

Sagamok’s crew were jump-suited and goggled,

A miner’s lamp lighted should the power become boggled.

Our kind hosts, in a jeep, soon did place us,

And before you knew it, we were off to the races,

Shot down 4500 feet of pure dark.

To keep mild anxiety at bay

I quizzed Bobbi-Jo, our guide, as we plummeted the way.

After admiring stopes, drifts and scoops down there,

For two hours breathing the damp nickel air,

We were returned topside for our lunches.

(Pictured above left to right: left to right: Stitch, Levi, Roy, Jackie, Ray, Bobbi-Jo, Dean, and the Poet.)

Fred Weihs, working with leading Canadian geographer Dr. George Wenzel and editor Terry Rudden, is completing an analysis of literature and interviews on Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit for the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board. The NWMB is looking for ways to ensure that IQ becomes a meaningful and integral part of research and policy development regarding wildlife in Nunavut.

HAPPY ENDINGS

Nothing actually finished this month, besides Chuck’s 44th year of existence.

GOSSIP

After a week of wandering around Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec with son Mike, Chuck Gilhuly ended up in Picton, Ontario at the famous Sandbanks Provincial Park. Beautiful weather, great beaches and all the toasted marshmallows a person could want. Chuck finished off his holidays with a trip back to Nova Scotia to visit his daughter Lucie’s cottage before jumping back into the fray in August.

Helen Klengenberg is currently afloat somewhere on her yacht, the “Kimnik Rose”, completing the last lap of her epic trip from Yellowknife to Kugluktuk. Last year’s attempt, as faithful readers will recall, was interrrupted by storms, sandbars, a polar bear, and an evacuation by Sikorski helicopter. This year Helen, her 9 yr old granddaughter Kimnik and Helens brothers Stanley and Danny castoff from Tuk at 0700hrs on July 25; they hope to complete the trip within six days and then spend time building her 16 X 20 tent frame for more long term visits. After a day bay in Iqaluit to remind her husband Paul Murphy that she exists, she’ll be heading to to Ottawa for some Aarluk planning and weekend scuba diving. (Above right– the 2007 Klengenberg Expedition)

With day time temperatures soaring above 27 degrees Celsius, July 2008 was one of the most beautiful weather-wise months in Iqaluit for many years and Mehrun and Terry Forth managed to give it all a complete miss by hanging out on the Rideau where things were often very hot, but also very wet – something like the monsoons! It’s all about acclimatization, since their home away from home is nearing completion – stand by for further word in our September issue. In the meantime they have been keeping in touch with the goings on in Iqaluit courtesy of…

The Official Terry Forth Beaches Webcam - the one that looks out on all the activity in front of his living room window - has now been added to the Arctic Territory website http://www.arcticterritory.tv/#en_01), which was recently nominated for a French Gemini Award. Click on "Community" then click on "Iqaluit", then on Web Cam 2. That's Chez Forth. The picture is updated every 10 seconds, but the really neat thing is the "See the last 24 hours" button below the picture - which gives a lapsed series of photos taken over the previous 24 hours; watch Iqaluit’s amazing tidal action up close! (Right – view of Frobisher Bay from Terry Forth’s Webcam – simulation.)

BIRTHDAYS

Founding partner Fred Weihs (captured live on film right, in Hay River last month) celebrates his birthday on August 9th. Born in a sod hut on the prairies, Fred was sent away to study the art of the trapeze at the Sorbonne by neighbours who recognized his talent and took up a collection. After an unfortunate midair collision with an acrobatic panda during a performance in Shanghai, Fred retired groundside and took up management consulting. And the rest is history. And speaking of history…

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

The Saga Continues: In August 1993, Fred Weihs and Greg Smith had agreed to team up to submit a proposal to the Nunavut Implementation Training Committee for a major analysis of the training needs arising from the newly ratified Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. They decided to add one more member to their team – a guy with a funny accent called Ron Ryan, working for ITK on economic development issues, a former educator who had worked with Arctic College, the Pangnirtung Artists’ Cooperative and Coady Institute. Ron had also been part of the Atii Training Project, as well as a key player on several of the groups working on Human Resources Planning for Nunavut. Fred and Greg popped the question, and Ron agreed to come on board.

FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY TRIVIA

Last month we challenged our readers to choose the ONE organization in a given list that we had Never worked for. The list of real and faux clients consisted of the ASTRO Theatre, Weber Malakov Expeditions Inc., the Belize Indigenous Training Institute, Alcatel (formerly Newbridge Networks), Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC), Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Odawa Native Friendship Centre, DeBeers of Canada, Volkswagen Canada, and Lord Cultural Resources.

The envelope, please (rustle, rustle). Well, there’s a surprise. The only organization in that list that Consilium has never worked for is….the Odawa Friendship Centre.

There were several answers, but no-one got it right. So here’s an easier one.

In its fifteen year history, which of the following places has Consilium NEVER worked in?

You know the drill - fabulous prizes, and the kind of glory that only a guest appearance in the Consilium Newsletter can bestow. Go to.

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LAST WORDS

And just since it really, truly is Bad Poetry Month, it wouldn’t be fair to leave you without a sample from the pen of the master. Here is the complete text of “The Tay Bridge Disaster”, by the incomparable William Topaz McGonagall.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,

Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.