Safer times for Halloween

It's a time for ghosts and spooky skeletons to meet up with vampires and werewolves as sneaky goblins try to sneak off with as many goodies as they can carry.

Ghouls everywhere can unite as it's almost Halloween once again.

Kids out to do some trick-or-treating should be aware of safety precautions that include never trick-or-treating alone, keeping youths in a group, carrying a flashlight, always checking candy before eating it, never enter a home, remove tripping hazards and choosing safe costumes.

Yet, there was a time, not all that long ago, when Halloween was safer and Arviat had no polar bears wandering the streets.

Gleason Uppahuak, 39, enjoys thinking back to the days he trick-or-treated in Arviat and always came home with about two-weeks worth of sweet treats.

Uppahuak said there was no bear problem — a Halloween safety hazard unique to the North — in Arviat around the mid-'90s.

He said he and four or five of his friends would collect candy together, going gleefully from door to door around the community.

“Today, a lot of communities choose to hold most of the festivities under one roof for safety concerns, but it wasn't like that when I was growing up in Arviat,” said Uppahuak.

“Back then, there weren't many polar bears around at all in Arviat. Nowadays there's too many polar bears running inside the town for it to be safe for kids to be walking all around the community.

“It was fun for us back then going door to door and we always got lots and lots of candies.”

Uppahuak said the bear problem came years later when strict low quotas were put in place and the bear population just exploded around the community.

“I never got too carried away with a costume. I was quite happy going out with just a Jason goalie mask on, even though to this day I don't watch horror films.

“Half the fun back then was just going around with your group of friends. There were no fireworks that I remember. It was just all about the candy.

“We always did well trick-or-treating and it was great to come home with a stock of candies that would last me two or three weeks.

“We also never had any problem with older kids taking candy from the younger ones when I was growing up. Halloween was a lot of fun back then and it was a pretty safe holiday.”