Five students had their drawings selected during Fire Prevention Week to enjoy being fire chief for a day in Rankin Inlet on Nov. 15.
Photo courtesy Mark Wyatt
It was the second year the Rankin Inlet department held the contest for students from kindergarten to Grade 4 at Leo Ussak Elementary School (LUS).
Fire Chief Mark Wyatt said almost 100 per cent of the kids the firefighters go to see at LUS enter the contest.
He said it makes it hard to select the winning entry with more than 300 kids participating.
“We go through a lot of drawings, and part of the judging is not just the quality of the picture, but also some of the things they learned when we go to talk to them during Fire Prevention Week being reflected in their drawings,” said Wyatt.
“It worked out really well and the pictures have all been pretty good.”
Wyatt said the contest has become a special event to the kids who win.
He said there can only be five winners, and it’s difficult knowing how the kids feel who really wanted to win and didn’t. Unfortunately, he can’t bring more than 300 kids over to the fire hall for lunch.
“When the winning kids are selected, we pick them up in the fire truck.
“The parents are told in advance, but the kids are not, so they’re usually pretty surprised and stoked when a fire truck just pulls up in front and turns on the lights and sirens.
“Then we pick them up again at lunch, bring them over to the fire hall, feed them lunch and talk to them a lot.
“They each get a framed certificate to put on their wall, goody bags, and a $25 gift certificate from the Northern store. Then, at the end of the day, we pick them up at school and drive them home.”
Wyatt said four or five firefighters join the kids for lunch at the fire hall.
He said everyone sits around a big table having a good time and eating pizza, cupcakes, hot chocolate and chips.
“It’s not all on me now that we have more people trained in fire-prevention presentations, so we’ll definitely continuing doing this.
“The first year, I basically did all the presentations with the help of some of the firefighters.
“But, this year, I went the first day and just left Catherine Tatty-Kabvitok, who took the lead, and Kelly Kabvitok, Kyle Lowe and a few of the other firefighters (George Aksadjuak, Obadiah Sanguin and Scott Morey) handle it and they did a great job.”