Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the past eight years and hopefully this summer, in July, people will tell us to take a hike, and I say I’m glad to. I hike along the Canol Heritage Trail. I hike with the young people. We’ve been doing it for the last eight years. Why take the hike? Why go with them? I look at this and I say, well, what’s the experience? From this experience, what will help the youth today? We go out to the Canol Trail, someplace, maybe at Mile 15, maybe at Mile 70, maybe at Mile 222, but we take one of these locations and we go out with the youth and we give them the opportunity once every year, maybe once in a lifetime, to come out and experience life on the land of the yesterdays and see how this experience will help them. They need help in all kinds of ways today because of such an enormous amount of challenges facing them.
This experience helps them with the value of teamwork and learning how to work together, how to survive on the land, what areas to look for to camp, how to gather wood in the rain, to make fire in the rain, how to cook for themselves, even to wash dishes, what kind of wood to get, and know that the sticks are not going to get off the ground and make their way to the fire. They have to get up and get the sticks to put them on the fire because there’s nobody there to do it for them, or to get water, but the values they learn as young people are enormous, and their potential.
You know what? After the hike, these young people are so beautiful. They’re so rich and so strong, and all they need is guidance from older people. I’m looking forward to the ninth annual hike to learn more with them, to learn with them, and having some of my colleagues that hopefully will be on the trip with me to hike this year. This will be the ninth annual leadership hike with the youth in the Sahtu, and I’m hoping that, again, we’ll have some more youth coming out with us to experience life and that this experience will do them wonders in life.
So, Mr. Speaker, certainly this summer I will take a hike.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
