Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned by the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on Tuesday, this is Heritage Week and yesterday was Heritage Day. Here in the city of Yellowknife, we are lucky to have an active and effective Heritage Committee. This group of volunteers and city councillors work to preserve this

young city’s heritage, to publicize the history of the city and to educate Yellowknifers about the city’s heritage. Over the years, the Yellowknife Heritage Committee has managed to save some of Yellowknife’s original buildings from demolition. They have put in place a successful plaque program to recognize and publicize the sites of heritage buildings which did suffer demolition and are no longer around to be seen. They have documented hundreds of original buildings and sites built when the city was a small mining town. Last but not least, the committee organizes a week of activity to celebrate Heritage Week and recognizes a resident who has made significant contributions to this city’s heritage through an annual heritage award.

Heritage has a sense of origin, Mr. Speaker. It is something that is passed down from preceding generations. It is our tradition and knowledge and it is the legacy we leave behind for the next generation. There is an old cliché which says, “you can’t know where you are going until you know where you have been.” To know and understand our history, our heritage and our culture, allows us to understand and respect ourselves, to understand and respect our family traditions, to understand and respect our community’s reason for being, and knowing and understanding our community connects us to where we live and gives us a sense of place. Every one of us as residents of the NWT must play a part in preserving our heritage, our own personal heritage through knowledge of our ancestors, our community heritage through maintaining buildings, special sites and trails and our territorial heritage through documentation of people and places.

I congratulate the City of Yellowknife for recognizing the importance of heritage. I also specifically congratulate Ms. Yvonne Quick, who is the city’s Heritage Award winner for 2010. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.