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AROUND THE SOUTH SLAVE: Daycare Society stroller-a-thon

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Thebacha/Fort Smith

The Fort Smith Daycare Society will be hosting a 'stroller-a-thon' on June 9.

Everyone is welcome to push, walk, ride or bike a one-kilometre loop from the old daycare lot, along the riverbank and back.

Participants will receive information about the future of the daycare, along with healthy snacks.

The stroller-a-thon will take place from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. on June 9

Dark Sky Festival planned for August

Thebacha/Fort Smith

The Thebacha & Wood Buffalo Dark Sky Festival has been set this year for Aug. 23 to Aug. 26.

The festival is hosted in Fort Smith and the world's largest dark sky preserve, Wood Buffalo National Park.

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada designated Wood Buffalo National Park the world's largest dark sky preserve in 2013.

Such a preserve restricts artificial light to allow easier viewing of the night sky.

One of the special guests at this year's festival will be Dr. Roberta Bondar, Canada's first female astronaut.

Bondar spent eight days in space in 1992 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

The Thebacha & Wood Buffalo Dark Sky Festival will take place both in Fort Smith and at Pine Lake, about 60 km to the south in the Alberta section of the national park.

The annual event is presented by the Thebacha & Wood Buffalo Astronomical Society in conjunction with Wood Buffalo National Park.

More information on the festival schedule and the fees is available by contacting the Thebacha & Wood Buffalo Astronomical Society.

Retired teacher in Fort Smith honoured

Thebacha/Fort Smith

Lois Firth Lafferty, a retired teacher in Fort Smith, was honoured on May 31 as one of seven people to be inducted into the Education Hall of Fame in the NWT.

Lafferty, who began teaching in 1979, was chosen as the inductee from the South Slave Region.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment launched the Education Hall of Fame in 2010 to recognize outstanding educators, volunteers, board members, administrators and community members involved in education across the territory.

The other inductees this year were Bella Kay from the Beaufort Delta, Brian Jaffray from the Deh Cho, Rosa Mantla from the Tlicho, Jean Marie Mariez and Gerard Landry from the North Slave, and Chris Gilmour from Inuvik.

Summer highway projects announced

Deninu Ku'e/Fort Resolution

Highway 6 to Fort Resolution will get 24 km of chipseal resurfacing and rehabilitation over the next two summers as part of highway construction announced May 31 by the GNWT.

Embankment reconstruction and drainage improvement from Km 28 to Km 33 will also take place on Highway 6.

In the summers of 2018 and 2019, over $46.4 million in improvements will be made to more than 200 km of NWT highway, including three community access roads and three bridges.

The work will be jointly funded by the GNWT and the federal government.

The projects will include the previously announced replacement of Hay River's Pine Point Bridge. That work is scheduled to begin in October.

Also in the South Slave, rehabilitation of the Buffalo River Bridge will be completed.