Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to talk a bit about Fort Resolution, the oldest community in the western Arctic. As some Members know, Fort Resolution used to be the oldest trading centre and the most active one at the turn of the century. Fort Resolution was founded as a trading post, a Northwest Trading Company as well as the Hudson Bay Trading Company, and it grew also into one of the biggest hospital centres in the western Arctic. It had a major hospital there run by the Catholic church, as well as it had a major educational centre called residential schooling. As Fort Resolution grew, also the Northwest Territories grew, but its shift started to change from a fur type, renewable resource economy to a non-renewable resource economy.

For example, the gold mines in Yellowknife. When the gold mines in Yellowknife started up, the closest resources for timber were in the Slave River lowlands and in the Slave River Valley. Back in the 1930s they started logging and sawing in the Slave River lowlands, just outside of Fort Resolution, and the majority of the people working in those sawmills came from my community, Fort Resolution. In those days, Mr. Speaker, they had about five or six sawmills along the Slave River and Jean Marie River and they used to saw logs by hand with a crosscut saw and saw them up in the sawmills, load the barges by hand and bring it to Yellowknife for timbers for the gold mines here. They also supplied much of the lumber that built Yellowknife and that is in some of the older buildings in this community.

Consequently, Mr. Speaker, you do have the enjoyment of visiting elders in our community and every time you visit an elder they all talk about working in the sawmill. They all talk about doing that type of work to support their family, so you do have grandfathers that have worked in sawmills, you do have fathers that have worked in sawmills and now you have the sons that are working in the present sawmill in Fort Resolution. This is part of the culture of Fort Resolution, it is part of our history and we will continue to do that. The people of Fort Resolution are proud people and we all want to work for our dollars, none of us want to get welfare. So, in the end, Mr. Speaker, I came from Fort Resolution yesterday, I saw a yard full of logs and everybody was looking at hearing that headsaw fire up. Thank you.