Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On January 9th to 11th , the community of Inuvik

welcomed about 25 out-of-town visitors for the annual Sunrise Festival. I don’t know of any other place in the world that puts that type of events and activities into an event like this where the community is welcoming back the sun after about a month of darkness.

There was about three days of activities and events that were planned in Inuvik. The Town of Inuvik and its partners, organizations and businesses in the community came together and developed a really great three days of events and showcases. I just wanted to highlight a couple of them.

One was A Taste of Inuvik and an old-time dance that showcased local and traditional northern foods. About 450 people attended, and performances were also put on by the Inuvik Drummers and Dancers and the Inuvik youth jigging group, who always do an excellent job and are actually great ambassadors for the Inuvik and Beaufort-Delta region and even for the Northwest Territories.

There was also a community pancake breakfast with about 400 people who got served. All donations were given to the Inuvik Food Bank, which was great.

They also had a snow park, an Arctic market and, this was a big one, the Inuvik ice road village, which was something new. I would like to take the time and recognize all the people who put that together, but there are so many names, so many volunteers and people who did such a great job that gave the real, true northern experience to people who came up from down south.

The Town of Inuvik and their tourism department did a great job in developing packages that could be delivered from Yellowknife, Edmonton, Vancouver, Kelowna, Whitehorse and Dawson. What I also wanted to talk about was the funding that they got from NWT Tourism where they were able to get some marketing and promotion on things like Destination Think!, which put on a contest and had over 1,900 contest entries and two winners from Vancouver and Whistler attended. Rogers Media radio and television also held

contests and there was a family and others that were able to go into this contest with, again, about 3,000 entries in there as well. So it really got Inuvik on the map and the Northwest Territories as well.

I will ask the Minister of ITI some questions later about how we can support this event. Thank you, M. Speaker.