Even though they contacted a good number of people, they were unable to reach others before Christmas and the New Year.

Sarah Anala, a well known Labrador-rimiuk works with Corrections Services Canada and inmates in Federal Penitentiaries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. She usually calls with inmates wanting to send greetings.

Because of winter storms in her area and her busy schedule, Anala was unable to call, until yesterday.

You know what they say, better late than never.

The second course will deal with Family Law starting next month.

Cecilia Wade is the Business Development Officer of CONA in Happy Valley.

She says eighteen seats are available for nine Inuit and nine Innu to take part.

Wade says the sectional content for the morning will be taught by professionals within the Justice System or by representatives of agencies who work in the field of Family Law.

The afternoon sessions will focus on the skills and ethics of interpreting, using materials presented during the morning sessions.

Interested people are to complete an application, indicating educational level, and return the form to the college.

Wade says the deadline to apply is January 16,2009, and the courses start February 16.

Accepted students will be contacted with related costs funded by the Department of Justice, including application processing fee, tuition, resource materials and supplies.

Costs for travel, meals, accomodations, child care and living expenses are not covered.

For further information, contact Lisa Saunders, the Admissions Officer at 896 – 6304.

And more information about the winter trails groomers?

Herb Jacque is the AngajukKâk of the Inuit Community Government in Makkovik.

He says the condition of the ice is pretty good now after it broke up three days ago.

And people are traveling on the ice to their cabins down south and up north.

Jacque says the town owns the present trail groomer after obtaining funds from different organizations, and the Labrador Winter Trails and Provincial Government.

He says they are using the trail groomer to smooth out the towns roads.

He added a Council member and the Town Clerk are meeting with representatives of the Labrador Winter Trails in Goose Bay and they return home tomorrow.

We hope to have more news about that meeting next week.

In Postville, Keith Decker is the AngajukKâk of the Inuit Community Government.

He reports that the town is not operating the groomer because they're waiting for funds to obtain a new groomer.

Decker says the last Provincial Budget allocated $28,00.00 to purchase a new groomer from the only supplier in Canada, Barrie, Ontario.

He says Labrador Winters Trails is not permitting the town to use the trail groomer, because the groomer does not work well in slob and snow and it is quite old.

Decker says the ice condition is pretty good even though the weather has been pretty mild.

He says they are scheduled to check out the ice condition later this month or early February.

This morning we decided to get the latest from Hopedale and their outdoor rink.

Howard Fitzpatrick is the Corporal of the RCMP detachment in Hopedale, and this is what he provided us.

“Despite the warm weather last week, the rink is still up and running, and an officer from their detachment found hockey equipment donations from the Gould's Minor Hockey Association”

He says “the nets were shipped on the ferry, and the equipment was flown up on Provincial Airlines, all free of charge ” and he says they gave it all to the Department of Health and Social Development to distribute to the public.

Although the rink is up and running, Fitzpatrick says that anything in regards of a league has not started and will not likely begin till this spring.

In the later days from now, we will be sure to contact the other communities such as Natuashish and Makkovik to see how their hockey season is going.

To find out how the fire broke out, we contacted Constable Mark Blackmore at the Nain RCMP detachment.

He says “Me and Dez were on-call, we smelt smoke, so we then checked to see if there were any chimney fires.”

Once the two officers had found the source of the smoke behind the Primary School, Blackmore said “we banged on the front door, because we didn't know if there were anyone in there, and because we were yelling and banging so loudly, Julius Pijogge came up and told us there wasn't anyone living in there.”

When asked about the time frames, he says “it was approximately 4am when the house caught a fire.”

Just after that time, the Nain Volunteer Fire Department came on scene, and the fire was extinguished at around 7:30am.

Blackmore included that the fire lightly flared up once again at approximately 8:30am, and was extinguished by the Nain Volunteer Fire Brigade at around 9:00am.

He then said “the cause of the fire is not considered suspicious, and right now the cause is to be determined.”

We then asked him if an inspector will be brought in to determine just that, Blackmore replied “if an inspector does come to make a determination, it will based on the work that was done.” and then said “if anyone has any questions, they can call the Nain RCMP detachment.

Herbert Nakkimajak was on the Health Survey team and was in Nain in October doing the survey.

Nain was the last stop on the survey's path, but the Amundsen went all across the North to Inuit communities.

We spoke with him to find out what is going on with the survey now and when we will find out what the results are.

We contacted Danny Michelin in Rigolet, who is the AngajuKak of the Inuit Community Government.

He says a couple of skidoos had a difficult time travelling to Goose Bay as there was a lot of water on the ice but since the weather got cooler the ice is now much better to travel on.

He added the Labrador Winter Trails has requested the trail groomer back from the community as they had a difficult time with the groomer last year, due to break downs and repairs in Rigolet, Makkovik and Postville.

Michelin says they will not give up the groomer because the Inuit Community Government owns the engine of the groomer, after obtaining $28,000.00 from the Arvitok Trust Fund of the community and the Labrador Winter Trails owes them $6,000.00 for oil and gas.

Until that sum of money is paid back, Michelin says they will not give up the groomer.

He says the Provincial Governments, Labrador and Aboriginal Affairs is taking over the Labrador Winter Trails subsidy program for the North Coast of Labrador and all isolated communities.

So we decided to contact Mary Simon, the President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK).

She says that the ITK is requesting that the Federal and Provincial Governments see this, and to try to resolve this problem.

Simon acknowledges that because of over crowding and lack of housing, our people face health issues like lung cancer, failure of children concentration on homework and many more issues.

The deadline for Beneficiaries of Nunatsiavut to apply for land around their cabins or land around their traplines have come and gone.

The deadline was December 31^st, 2008.

Bob Warren is the Special Advisor for the Minister of Environment, Lands and Resources within the Nunatsiavut Government.

He says even though the deadline for Beneficiaries to apply is past, they will be given another chance to apply under another process.

Warren also says they've recieved well over four hundred applications which is mostly for land within people's cabin areas.

These applications will be compiled and reviewed and then they hope to come to Nunatsiavut communities by the end of this month or in February for sure to let people know whose applications were approved, and whose weren't and the reasons why.

Matt White says he started his new position as the Director of Communications for Lorainne Michael and the NDP on Monday, January 5^th, 2009.

He is taking over from Amanda Will, who will now be the Executive Assistant to the Leader of the NDP. Lorainne Michael.

White says if anyone would like to get in touch with Lorainne Michael and the NDP for interviews, information or anything at all, they can call him.

Whites office number is (709) 729-2137, his cell-phone number is (709) 699-8610or he can be reached by email at mattwhite@gov.nl.ca.