Ed. note: this is one of a series of riding profiles for the Nov. 7 election being published in random order.

Riverdale North is a full field of newbies this year.

Mark Beese is running for the Yukon Party, Rod Snow for the NDP, Nils Clarke for the Liberals, and Kristina Calhoun for the Green Party.

Since 1992, the riding has only once voted for a party other than the Yukon Party, in 2000, when residents voted in Liberal candidate Dale Eftoda as part of the Whitehorse ridings sweep by Pat Duncan’s Grits.

Scott Kent, the Yukon Party incumbent, moved out of the riding this year, and is a candidate in Copperbelt South.

Nils Clarke

Working in legal aid can be a grind if you ask Nils Clarke.

“The criminal justice system is the end of the line where a lot has gone wrong already and we’re there to pick up the pieces to a certain extent,” says Clarke, 51, who moved to the Yukon to practise law in 1992.

Still, he says it’s heartening for him to run into former clients, sometimes years later, and see things are working out for them.

In this position, Clarke feels he has, in some ways, already had an impact on public policy. Politics seemed like a natural extension.

He has taught criminology at Yukon College and volunteered with the École Whitehorse Elementary School council. He currently volunteers as treasurer of both the Teen Parent Access to Education Society and as treasurer of the MacBride Museum.

Professionally, over the years he says he’s been a strong advocate, a good listener, and someone who has negotiated thousands of agreements. He’s prepared, he says, to work with all levels of government.

“I want to try in whatever small way I can to make this territory that I and my family love to be a better place,” he says, speaking for himself, his wife, Janet, and their two teenage sons.

In Riverdale North, Clarke says constituents are concerned about the interplay between the economy and the environment. At the door, he says people seem open to initiatives that will reduce the carbon footprint in the Yukon.

He points to the LNG plant and small hydro, and says that though there’s a long road ahead, he thinks small hydro is the way of the future.

“It’s a challenge,” says Clarke. “But I think fair-minded Yukon voters recognize that climate change is a reality. Its not science-fiction; it’s science-fact.

“I think all Yukoners who love this place, and its a gorgeous place to live as it is today, that we want to leave a better place for our kids and our grandchildren.

“We can do better,” he says.

Kristina Calhoun

It was the things that were important to Kristina Calhoun that led her to politics, she says.

“I feel like if we don’t have voices in politics that are representative of the average Yukoner, then how do we ever expect anything to change?” asks Calhoun, 42. “I don’t want to be one of these people who just complains, complains, complains about the way it is.”

Calhoun says she has definitely spent some time complaining in the past, but, these days, she acts.

Calhoun came to the Yukon with her husband 10 years ago after moving all over Canada for his job in aviation.

She says they and their daughter love the small community in Whitehorse, as well as access to the mountains and the wilderness.

They’re important to her, as she says they are to Riverdale North constituents.

Calhoun says one of the big things on residents’ minds this year is climate change, along with other environmental issues.

Calhoun says the Greens are for the kind of sustainable mining and resource extraction that can be done in a cleaner, safer way, without impacting the land so negatively.

“We could be leaders of sustainable extraction,” she says.

Calhoun says she’s also heard a lot about housing, and it’s coming from two distinct groups that might be surprised to know they share a common concern.

Both seniors and youth tell Calhoun that when they look at the housing market in Whitehorse, they see affordable housing for low-income residents, or $400,000 condos. There’s no middle ground, they say.

Seniors who have scrimped and saved but don’t qualify as low-income don’t know where to go. And 25-year-olds who can’t afford the houses that cost their parents $100, 000 are frustrated by feeling like they don’t fit in and can’t fix it.

Finally, she says constituents want to see greater recognition and appreciation of the relationship Riverdale has with First Nations, in the form of signage indicating historic sites.

They’d also like increased services so they can walk to the doctor, the dentist, or a credit union.

Mark Beese

Politics are something Mark Beese had thought about for a while, but this year, the timing seemed right, he says.

With his kids at an age where they’re more independent (a son who recently graduated and a daughter in Grade 10), Beese says he had the space in his life to run for the Yukon Party, but there’s another way he says his kids influenced his decision.

Soon, they’re going to start making choices in their own lives. Beese says he wants to do what he can to ensure they’re choosing from among the best options.

Beese, 44, moved to the Yukon from Barrie, Ont., nearly 25 years ago. He and his wife, Tammy, had planned to move around every summer until they’d found the best place in Canada to live. The search ended that first year, though.

“It didn’t take long to fall in love with the Yukon,” he says.

Though Beese initially came up for a job in tourism, he has also worked in media and with Yukon Brewing. He currently runs the tools section at Home Hardware.

He says the major issue he hears about on doorsteps is the question of carbon tax. Yukoners pay enough to live in the North, he says, and it’s a Yukon Party priority to fight that.

In Riverdale North, it’s especially pressing, he says. The riding is full of young families looking for ways to keep costs down. He says the Yukon Party’s decision last spring to fund $100 worth of school supplies for each student in the Yukon is something residents have expressed appreciation for.

It was a small thing, but one that he thinks made a big difference.

Now what Beese is hearing from residents is they need more parks and daycares in what he says is a “family-oriented neighbourhood.”

He says residents are also concerned with congestion issues. That’s why he’s so excited about the Yukon Party’s campaign promise to explore building a second bridge between downtown and Riverdale.

Beese says having worked in media, with the ever-present pressure of a weekly deadline, and stories dropping and cropping up, he regularly had to work with staff to come up with solutions.

“I’m a problem solver, and I like to get in and make things work and make things happen,” he says.

Rod Snow

Whether you’re talking about your neighbourhood, or the whole territory, Rod Snow says it’s all about community and how Yukoners help each other out.

That’s why he gets the sense some people are disappointed when they feel like the communities and government can’t get along.

“I tend to believe we’re all stronger when we work together,” says Snow, 63.

The sense of community is one of the reasons Snow stayed in the Yukon longer than he’d originally intended.

Snow moved North with his wife and three children (now aged 25 to 32) in 1993.

It was supposed to be a two-year commitment (to open a office for the law firm where he was a partner), but when the two years were up, Snow stayed.

He got into politics this year because he says he wanted to make a contribution.

“My dad taught by example about the importance of public service, and this is the ultimate public service,” he says.

In the last few months, he says people have been very open to welcoming him into their homes and talking about the issues that are important to them.

He says Yukoners are unhappy with procurement situations, such as the new F.H. Collins Secondary School, where Outside companies have come in and been funded for Yukon jobs.

They’re also proud of the unique personality of their neighbourhood.

“Riverdale, to me, was a place where when I go out and the kids go out and play, they wouldn’t have to be constantly supervised,” Snow says.

“Everyone feels lucky they can open the door and let the kids go out and play, and there is a joy in the freedom kids feel when they can do that.”

He says he thinks that kind of freedom builds confidence and independence.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, Snow says the experience has been rich, and he feels it will serve him going forward, whether that’s in the legislature, or as a private citizen.

“And you gotta like that,” he says.