DATE: October, 2005 ISSUE: 43

Our Featured Celebration

October (the whole month, believe it or not) is National Popcorn Popping Month. It does seem odd that Popcorn rates a whole month of celebration while Thanksgiving, Yom Kippur and Ramadan each get one lousy DAY apiece, but that's none of our business.

We can suggest no paean to popcorn more fitting than an outing to the Bytowne Cinema in Ottawa. Yeah, their movies are pretty good too, but the real attraction is their popcorn..real butter, not soggy, not too much salt…popcorn perfection that makes the stuff at Cineplexes taste like oil-drenched oversalted styrofoam packing chips. And no, the Bytowne didn't pay for this plug…it's a sincere tribute from an office full of Popcorn Fans.

WHAT'S HAPPENING AT CONSILIUM, AARLUK and ARDOS... In this corner of our site we'll be posting notes on new people, new projects, and new online materials you may find interesting. Enjoy, and come back often.

NEW PROJECTS

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! The Land Claims Agreement Coalition is pleased to announce its
second national conference titled "Achieving Objectives: A New Approach to Land Claims Agreements in Canada." The conference is scheduled for June 27-30, 2006 at the beautiful Hilton Lac Leamy in Hull, Quebec. Conference co-chairs are Nellie Cournoyea, CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, and Nelson Leeson, President of the Nisga'a Nation. This important event will follow the same general format as the highly successful "Redefining Relationships" conference held in November 2003, and will include high-profile international speakers, working group themes, technical sessions and Aboriginal entertainment featuring comedian Don Kelly and award-winning musical group TAIMA. Photo right: Nellie Cournoyea, Conference Co-chair

The 2003 conference was fully booked up more than a month in advance, so book early and take advantage of the discounted registration fee. For information, and to ensure that you are on the conference mailing list, please contact Patti Black, conference coordinator black@consilium.ca

Ian Kenney and David Boult, under the supervision of Fred Weihs, will be working with the six communities of the Inuvialuit Region, helping them develop their responses to the planned Mackenzie Gas Pipeline Project, which is set to begin construction next year. Ian will be facilitating community sessions in Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik and Holman, while David will be visiting Paulatuk and Sachs Harbour. These responses will be written by Consilium, and submitted by December. Watch this space in the month ahead for photos of these wonderful communities.

Harvesting in Nunavut is important both culturally and economically – and so are the programs that support it. Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Government of Nunavut are jointly studying the programs available to harvesters, seeking to reduce duplication, identify gaps, and promote long term sustainability of harvester support. Fred Weihs is heading up a project team that includes James Arreak, Helen Tologanak, David Boult, Terry Rudden and Ryan Lotan.

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Terry Forth and James Arreak, with design support from Terry Rudden, will be facilitating governance and planning sessions for the Nunavut Economic Forum. The NEF was created to help maximize the participation of Inuit and communities in the Nunavut economy, and brings together a broad range of stakeholders with economic development mandates in the Territory.

Ron Ryan and Ian Kenney are preparing a research paper for the National Association of Friendship Centres on the QUAD Principles (Quality, Universal, Accessible, Developmental) in Early Learning and Child Care programs. The paper, looking at programs at Friendship Centres in Halifax, Brandon and Port Alberni, is for submission by the NAFC to the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada and Social Development Canada.

ONGOING PROJECTS

Terry Rudden continues to provide support to the Department of Economic Development and Transportation to help implement the Department's Inuit Employment Plan. The plan will help this key GN Department achieve its long-term goal of 85% Inuit employment.

Best Gig of the Summer Part Two: Fossil Creek

Chris Grosset arrived in Rankin Inlet at noon on July 31 to sunny skies and warm winds, immediately deciding that all preparation for the trip into Coral Harbour the next day could wait a few hours until after a hike out to a friends cabin. The next day Marla Limousin (Aarluk associate), and Godfrey Noland and Keith Dewing of Geosciences Canada arrived in Rankin and we made our way over to Coral Harbour just before the weather turned to rain and cold wind for the remainder of the week. In Coral we had a chance for visiting before getting down to work - Louis Bruce, Lizzie and Marty Angootealuk, Leonie and Ron Duffy, and Johnnie and Elizabeth Ningeongan to name a few. Marla brought a 10lb box of blueberries from her farm in BC and Elizabeth and family were thrilled by the gift of sweet grape sized berries, as the attached photo shows.

The first walk of Fossil Creek covered 5 km but allowed the project team to narrow our study area down to a 1.5 km stretch of the creek near the airport. This area contains abundant loose and embedded fossils in the creek bed, and the area is easily accessible for a visitor travelling either from the community or the airport. Delilah Misheralak, a high school student, joined the team for the week as a research assistant. Godfrey and Keith were faced with simplifying 500 million years of geology and over forty fossil types found onsite into information that could be presented on the six panels at the site, but Delilah's insightful questions and comments on the landscape in the area of Coral Harbour helped us form the first draft of the interpretation program for the fossils. Delilah, Godfrey and Keith documented the fossil resources of the creek; Chris and Marla identified sign locations and wrote an outline of the story to be told at the site, which will be based around the visitor going on a "fossil hunt". Photo above left: Study team documents the fossil beds along the creek. Photo above right: Deliah and Godfrey. Next Month: The Northwest Passage Trail.

Working with the Department of the Environment and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Project Manager Fred Weihs, David Boult, Terry Rudden and Ryan Lotan are reviewing the current harvester support programs available in Nunavut. The objective of the review is to provide recommendations as to how these programs can be revised to ensure the priority needs of harvesters are met. The project builds upon an initial review of harvester support programs undertaken by the Government of Nunavut in 2000. Associates James Arreak and Helen Tologanak are assisting in the collection of information via interviews and focus groups being held across Nunavut.

Work was completed on a Strategic Planning study for the Iqaluit Deepwater Port Facility for the City of Iqaluit. This is an artist's conception by Ash Randev of what the proposed Port facility might look like. This was an Aarluk Consulting led project headed by Terry Forth with other team members from Gartner Lee Ltd. and Port Planner - Capt. Chris Anderson as well as help from Aarluk partner Fred Weihs and staff member Ryan Lotan. The strategic plan report was presented to the City of Iqaluit Economic Development Committee and the City Council in early September.

A review of the Nunavut Planning Commission's corporate policies and procedures undertaken over the past summer was completed and presented to Commission Chair, Bob Lyall. This project was led by Terry Forth, with active participation from Terry Rudden and Fred Weihs. A number of specific recommendations were made and further consideration by the appointing bodies led by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is now pending. The NPC is one of the Institutions of Public Government established under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and is responsible for land use planning and various aspects of environmental reporting and management in the territory.

HAPPY ENDINGS

Clive Tesar and Terry Rudden completed a communications strategy for the GN
Department of Economic Development and Transportation, working with Eva Michael, an old friend from our broadcasting days and now Manager of Communications for the Department. The strategy will help the Department spread the word about its programs, services and achievements more effectively.

Ron Ryan, Greg Smith, Blair Stevenson, Robert Higgins, Ian Kenney and Ryan Lotan presented the final report on the evaluation of the Cree Aboriginal Human Resources Development Agreement (AHRDA) to the Cree Regional Authority. The evaluation report reviewed activities and results of the Agreement over the past four years, and included recommendations towards negotiation of the next five year Agreement between the Cree AHRDA and HRSDC.

Ron Ryan, Blair Stevenson, Greg Smith, James Arreak, David Boult and Ryan Lotan have completed and presented the final report on the evaluation of the Nunavut Teacher Education Program (NTEP) for Arctic College. The report included a number of recommendations aimed at improving future teacher education programs in Nunavut.

GOSSIP

SPACE FOR RENT (SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE) Consilium has two offices to rent on the third floor of our newly renovated and very comfortable office building, St. Crispin Towers, at 488 Gladstone in Ottawa. These offices would be suitable to a single professional or small company, and come with parking and options to share reception, meeting rooms, photocopier, kitchenette, access to a wireless network, and the friendly company of other Consiliumites working in the building. For more information, contact our leasing specialist and office administrator Leslie Sutherland at (613) 237-3613.

Further Congratulations to Birthday Boy Lotan, who this month began studying for his Certified Management Consultant designation.

While a shameless plug is not exactly "gossip", what's the point of being a newsletter editor if you can't abuse your position for some blatant self-promotion? Do we all agree? Good. Then check out http://www.underwatermotion.com a new website featuring a series of scuba DVDs produced by award-winning director George Hargrave and his jolly sidekick, Terry Rudden. Don't miss the downloadable preview clips (that's Valerie Assinewe in the "Tobermory" clip, at the wheel of the Niagara II.)

Greg Smith's parents, Beth and Jack Smith, celebrated their 80th birthdays in August and September. To mark this milestone, they were joined by children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and numerous friends and other relatives for a reception followed by a sit-down dinner in London, Ont. September 24th. Jack is a technophile who provided lots of useful feedback in the early days of developing the fledgling Consilium website. Congratulations to both! Photo: Jack and Beth Smith surrounded by family and friends.

The Ottawa International Writer's Festival http://www.writersfest.com/index_e.htm has a couple of very special events this year. On Thursday October 6 at 6:00 pm, at the National Library on Wellington, ARDOS Vice President Jennifer David will host the unofficial launch of her book, Story Keepers: Conversations with Aboriginal Writers, discussing Aboriginal literature and live readings from four of the acclaimed writers featured in the book: Ottawa's Armand Garnet Ruffo, Anishnabe (Ojibway) from Northern Ontario; Louise Halfe, Cree, from Saskatchewan; Ruby Slipperjack-Farrell, Anishnabe (Ojibway) from northwestern Ontario; and Gregory Scofield, Métis, from the West coast.

And on Monday Oct. 3rd, at 7:30 pm at the National Library, Larry Osgood, old friend of Consilium, will be reading from "Midnight Sun", his acclaimed new novel of the North, and participating in a panel with novelists Neil Bissoondath, Wayne Choy, and Jaspreet Singh.

Your editor has offered to read extracts from this newsletter at the Festival: no response yet from the organizers.

Aarluk Consultant James Forth has recently taken to the air and is putting his Commercial Helicopter's License to work at the western end of the Thelon Game Sanctuary in the NWT not too far from his birthplace in Yellowknife. He's been there since mid-August and is undertaking some geological prospecting from the air. Meanwhile his white-knuckled Dad back in Iqaluit is trying to cope as best he can without James's tireless input to the day-to-day Aarluk chores.

The effervescent Ryan Lotan, our resident cinéphile and Elvis-Costello look-alike, celebrates his on October 15 (National Grouch Day, a most unjust and unfortunate juxtaposition).

ARDOS President Valerie Assinewe was born on October 22, 1950. In response, China immediately invaded Tibet.

Office Administrator Jennifer Bradshaw, no mean cinema triviologist herself, has the filmologically significant birthday of October 18, shared with George C. Scott, Melina Mercouri, Peter Boyle AND Jean-Claude Van Damme.

And NOW: Consilium Low Budget Re-enactments of Famous Scenes from the Movies, Part Deux.