Some random Yellowknife trivia

To get a background into Yellowknife 

check out this video

http://www.yellowknife.ca/Assets/Home/YK+Movie.mov

I thought while I am up here in Yellowknife I would share some triva and fun facts with you.

1.) Tim Horton's store #603, its most northern store, in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, recently earned the honour of top sales in the chain for 2007-2008. According to co-owner Greg Barton, the store handles around 2900 Yellowknifers per day.

2.) Yellowknife is approximately 400 km (250 mi) south of the Arctic Circle

3.)Of the eleven official languages of the Northwest Territories, five are spoken in significant numbers in Yellowknife: Dene Suline, Dogrib, South and North Slavey, English, and French.

4.) Yellowknife is represented in the territorial government by seven of the 19 Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories (MLAs).

5.) Government employment accounts for 7,644 jobs, a large percentage of those in Yellowknife (of 18,700) 

6.) Yellowknife has a frost-free growing season that averages slightly over 100 days

7.) In Yellowknife, the population is slightly disproportionate in terms of age distribution compared to the national average; the average age is 31.2, compared to a Canada-wide average of 39.5

8.) The Gold Range Bar, one of the oldest and most colorful drinking establishments in the Northwest Territories and featured in Mordecai Richler's novel Solomon Gursky Was Here)

9.) Margot Kidder, film and television actress best known for playing Lois Lane in the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s was born in Yellowknife in 1948.

10.) Yellowknife, calls itself the "Diamond Capital of North America" and has a motto of “Where a Golden History Meets a Brilliant Future.”

11.) A world-renowned viewing destination, almost 10,000 Japanese tourists flock to Yellowknife each year to see the Aurora Borealis wash across the sky

12.) The Canadian North Midnight Sun Golf Tournament, played on the weekend with the longest daylight hours of summer tees off at midnight

13.) The northern most McDonalds, KFC and A&W are located here.

14.) The Wildcat Cafe bult in1937 and saved from demolition is one of the city's most popular tourist attractions.

15.) Yellowknife's 75th Anniversary Homecoming is this year. It will be celebrated June 19 to July 4, 2009!!

"Celebration events hosted by the community will include displays, tours, tournaments, festivals, dinners, dances, breakfasts, a fishing derby, parades, talent shows, races, performances...and lots more to be announced. Whether you are young or old, local or visiting we look forward to sharing with you our memorable past, our dynamic present and our bright future."

16.) value of the gold mined from Yellowknife works out to be around $6,000,000,000 in todays dollars

1.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hortons

2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowknife

10, 11, 12, 13, 14.) http://www.nnsl.com/Ykguide/ykvis.pdf 

15.) http://www.yellowknife.ca/Visitors/Yellowknife75Homecoming.html

16.) www.yellowknife.ca 

Floyd and the boys live to see another day

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1300/1346782204_805c948f7d.jpg?v=1189261825

Floyd and his cabinet live to see another day.

Here in the NWT the government almost fell. 10-8 with the speaker speaking to the motion but not voting it. That means that  44% of the elected MLA's were against the government (8/18) It was a good thing that all of the cabinet was there to vote. 

Premier Roland just served a three game suspension in the Yellowknife Hockey League and the Sargent-at-Arms was ready to break up any brawls. You'll see that there are boards and glass set up and the wrestling mat is the bear skin rug.  

I've heard the Legislature called the NWT Spaceship before and here is a blog which explains the bulding and it's history.

http://yksusan.blogspot.com/2007/08/inside-nwt-spaceship.html

Next up if the vote on the budget. We'll see how that goes.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gyrOaVNFKuJ2eOOZ43kdJ9P0vTrA

N.W.T. Premier Floyd Roland survives non-confidence motion in legislature

2 days ago

YELLOWKNIFE — A humbled premier of the Northwest Territories promised a more conciliatory government after surviving a non-confidence vote Friday that could have seen him and his entire cabinet booted from office.

The motion, which was defeated 10-8, had been tabled by disgruntled politicians who said they had been treated badly.

Floyd Roland and his cabinet can now get back to the business of passing the budget, which was introduced Thursday.

"I think the message is before us," said the premier as he addressed the legislature before the vote. "We have to change the way we do business and I'm prepared to make the change."

The upheaval in the territorial legislature came two months after the Canadian government nearly fell to a coalition of opposition parties.

Under the rules of the N.W.T.'s consensus-style government, the premier and cabinet are chosen by all the members of the legislature after every general election. They may be dismissed at any time in a similar vote.

The motion was originally tabled Wednesday by Hay River South MLA Jane Groenewegen, the day before the government introduced its budget. Groenewegen, who leads the caucus of MLAs who aren't in cabinet, said those members felt the executive was withholding information from them and not including them in policy formation.

Groenewegen refused to back down despite sensing the vote wasn't going her way.

"I think the solution for this problem is for the premier to resign and let someone else take over the job," she told the house.

The vote came after impassioned and soul-searching speeches from all 19 members of the legislature about how to deal with the divisions that have plagued this assembly. The Speaker also spoke to the motion, but did not vote.

"We simply can't afford to continue to operate in this fashion," said Justice Minister Jackson Lafferty. "We simply cannot be changing leadership every time we get pissed off at one or two ministers."

Transportation Minister Michael McLeod told the house that the future of consensus government could be at stake.

"When it works, it works well," he said. "But when people don't respect it, it won't work at all. We're starting to see our consensus-style of government brought to a standstill."

But a long string of perceived slights were tough for some of the legislature members to forgive.

Groenewegen has accused the cabinet of misleading the house over contracts for a $155-million bridge across the Mackenzie River.

Roland, elected as premier in October 2007, initially told Groenewegen that the government's only financial exposure was a $9-million loan guarantee. It later emerged that the territory could be on the hook for much more if toll revenues for the bridge don't meet projections. That prospect is becoming more likely as cooling commodity markets slow northern industrial traffic.

Members also said the government didn't consult with them over plans to cut the civil service, restructure health and education boards and reduce health benefits to seniors. Members learned about the plans from their constituents, Groenewegen said.

Members also have concerns about a $34-million bailout to N.W.T.-based Discovery Air.

Many northerners expressed strong concerns about creating more turmoil and uncertainty at a time when the floundering economy seems to be creating plenty of both. The N.W.T. Chamber of Commerce urged members to vote to support the government.

Jacobson was one of several members who described the number of calls, including some at 2 a.m., he received from constituents urging him to stand up for Roland and his cabinet. He may have summed up the mood of the house when he said he'd vote against the motion, despite his disregard for the premier and cabinet.

"Notice has been given. You guys better start doing your jobs and serving the people. I'm giving you guys one more chance."

Last December, the federal Liberals and New Democrats banded together and threatened to bring down Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government over measures contained in the fall fiscal update. Harper avoided a non-confidence vote when he persuaded the Governor General to prorogue Parliament. The coalition dissolved when the Conservatives came back after the session resumed last week and brought in a spending-rich budget.

Former N.W.T. premier Stephen Kakfwi also faced non-confidence motions in 2001 and 2002. Roland was the only member to vote in favour of removing Kakfwi in the 2001 vote, saying he he had grown too arrogant.

Videos of the NWT from Ice Road Truckers

These videos will give you a good idea 

of what Yellowknife is all about. 

Please have a look.

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Video_Clips&content_type_id=54825&display_order=8&mini_id=54692

ICE ROAD TRUCKERS 

is coming to the History Television in Canada 

March 4th at 9pm ET/PT

During the harsh winter of Canada's Northwest Territory, remote villages and work camps are cut off from the world. To keep them supplied, a tenacious group of long-haul truckers drive their rigs over hundreds of miles on ice roads cut across the surface of frozen lakes. Sometimes the ice cannot support the heavy rig, and driver and cargo plunge through the ice and sink to the bottom. Hitch a risky ride along with the Ice Road Truckers as they drive headlong into bone-chilling danger.

http://www.history.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=232479

the long detour (globe&mail article)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20050813.NWT13/TPStory/specialTravel/?pageRequested=all

A 2,500-kilometre detour to nowhere

GUY NICHOLSON gets all the gravel he can handle as he veers off the RV-infested Alaska Highway to explore NWT's rugged routes

GUY NICHOLSON

Special to The Globe and Mail

August 13, 2005

THE MACKENZIE HIGHWAY, NWT -- I wake up from my nap at 2:30 p.m., about 90 minutes out of Fort Resolution. To the right, scrub bush hugging the shoulder like a wall. Straight ahead, gravel road stretching to the horizon.

To my left in the driver's seat is my girlfriend, and she's not pleased. The gravel started nearly an hour ago, and we still have more than seven hours ahead of us. She has never driven unpaved surfaces for more than a few kilometres, and her knuckles are white from thoughts of a breakdown so far from anywhere.

After an overtaking oil truck nearly puts us in the ditch, she's ready to reassess our plan to take the road less travelled, and we pull over to study the map. Turning back to take the only other route would add not a few hours but a full day, so we decide to carry on -- with me in the driver's seat.

Welcome to the Northwest Territories, where the days are long, the roads are lonely and even a basic road trip means spending the better part of a week in the car. It's not without its hardships, but if your cottage road is starting to look like a suburb, it might be for you.

This summer, our cottage road is the Alaska Highway -- hardly the beaten track, but no longer the grand adventure of lore. We have lots of time to complete our trip from Toronto to Anchorage, so we're taking a 2,500-kilometre detour north from Edmonton, hoping to see something different before rejoining the Alaska-bound tourists near Fort Nelson, B.C.

Day 1

Edmonton to Grimshaw, Alta.

We fortify ourselves with breakfast, groceries and gas, and leave town by 10 a.m. Turning north on No. 43, a smooth four-lane provincial highway, it seems hard to believe that it will take us three days to reach Yellowknife. Our tires speed across a rolling range land of oil derricks and mustard and flax fields that gradually weaves into boreal forest, a mere hint of what the coming week will hold. But the road shrinks to two lanes as we pass a construction crew and dozens of massive machines, reminding us how much work is required to hew a road from the wilderness.

Near Valleyview, a young man in a cowboy hat rides a horse beside the highway -- we're still in cowboy country, for sure. Our driving day comes to an end at the dusty farm community of Grimshaw, where we debate camping before choosing a room in a cheap roadside motel.

Day 2

Grimshaw to Hay River, NWT

Grimshaw is Mile Zero for the Mackenzie Highway, the spine of our road trip. The highway's origins go back to the settlement of northern Alberta, but it was extended north into the NWT after gold and oil were found there in the early 1900s. It still carries the territory's resources out, but it also brings a few thousand hardy tourists north each year.

Still in Alberta, we pull over for a washroom break in Manning, named for late premier Ernest Manning. We re-emerge to realize we've driven into the middle of the rodeo-weekend parade. Despite the drizzle, everyone in town is either driving a truck pulling a float or watching the procession, so we look for a place to pull over without blocking the view. Clowns are tossing candy and kids are scrambling for it in the middle of the highway.

North of High Level, the fields disappear for good into a wall of bush. It starts to get so monotonous that I begin to feel dozy and pull over to stretch, but I'm forced to hustle back into the car as a cloud of mosquitoes officially welcomes me to the North. The scenery finally starts to improve about 75 kilometres past the frontier at Alexandra Falls, where the Hay River plunges 30 metres into a broad gorge.

As dinnertime approaches, we reach our second night's destination: the town of Hay River, which was established as a Hudson's Bay post in the 1860s and is now the second-largest community in the territory. We stay at the Harbour House Bed & Breakfast, where a small beach is all that separates us from the south shore of Great Slave Lake. The adjoining port sends boats loaded with supplies to the NWT's more remote northern communities, some of which receive just one shipment a year because the summer breakup is so short. The maritime feel is an unexpected departure from the farms and forests we passed all day.

Day 3

Hay River to Yellowknife

We get a late start, so it's nearly noon by the time we turn up the Yellowknife Highway and reach the ferry for Fort Providence across the Mackenzie River. The water moves quickly enough that the boat has to find a spot in the jetty's lee to dock, but the river does freeze over in the cold months. An ice bridge is cleared every winter, but a planned $57-million bridge will soon change the way people and freight cross this mighty waterway. Perhaps it will also lower the gas prices -- at least 20 cents a litre more than in Ontario.

We're barely off the ferry when we encounter our first wood bison. There are 2,500 of these 1,000-kilogram beasts in the roadside Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary and we see at least 75 of them in two hours. Swarmed by masses of flies, they stroll unperturbed down the shoulder of the road, munching grass and dropping mounds of dung as cars pass close by. Several are killed every year in collisions with vehicles, so we're happy to arrive safely at our friend's apartment in Yellowknife.

Days 4, 5 and 6

Yellowknife

Home to about 20,000 people, the territorial capital is no metropolis, but it feels like one after the long trip from Edmonton. We spend three days hiking, fishing and boning up on local history. Yellowknife's diamond boom is sending ripples through the real-estate and service sectors, inflating prices and salaries while the city negotiates with native leaders to secure more land for expansion.

The population is a mix from all over the world; the established native and white populations mingle with Armenian diamond cutters, Vietnamese restaurateurs and a clique of African cab drivers.

It's a fascinating time to visit, but Yellowknife is just a footnote on this particular trip -- the road beckons.

Day 7

Yellowknife to Checkpoint

The bison are out again as we make our way back south again to the Mackenzie Highway just west of Kakisa where a road sign tells us Vancouver is 2,725 kilometres away. This leg of our trip is much shorter than that, but the 500 clicks of gravel road directly ahead to Fort Liard seem equally daunting. There are no services, no people and seemingly no wildlife ahead.

After my nap and our crisis of faith, we drive through intermittent rain for a while, which teaches us to differentiate among grades of rough road. The best is dry chip seal, a quick-and-dirty replacement for pavement. The worst is wet, potholed gravel, which is slippery and jarring. It takes us nearly four hours to arrive at Checkpoint, Mackenzie's junction with the southbound Liard Highway. There is one motel option, and despite the high rate -- $100 for a tiny double -- we take it, too worn out to continue.

Finding staff must be hard in a place like Checkpoint. The clerk who takes our money may or may not be of high-school age, and the housekeeper looks younger still. Even more unusual is the trickle of guests who pull in after us: In the morning, all three vehicles in the parking lot bear Ontario plates.

Day 8

Checkpoint to the Alaska Highway

Morning breaks with the weather and the road is wet again, but the rest has made us feel better equipped to deal with the conditions on the back road out of the NWT. The Liard Highway is gravel and bush all the way to the B.C. boundary and was opened to the public barely a decade ago, but the territorial government promotes it as a leg of the Deh Cho Trail, a giant loop that includes both our trip and the route between Fort Nelson and Grimshaw.

Fortune smiles upon us; the Liard has survived the rain without major problems. The road is featureless but safe as we drive past Blackstone Territorial Park, at the tip of Nahanni National Park Reserve, and catch our first glimpses of the Mackenzie Mountains. They're mere foothills compared with those along the Alaska Highway, but they look like the Himalayas after the flat land we've come through.

The only fuel we find south of Checkpoint is at Fort Liard, just north of the B.C. boundary and the resumption of pavement. On a map, it looks like we're almost back to the Alaska Highway, but this corner of the NWT is still remarkably isolated. We will drive 200 kilometres before we reach the final junction of our detour, and pass a total of 10 northbound vehicles all day.

We give a little cheer when we rejoin the stream of RVs, cyclists and hitchhikers on the Alaska Highway west of Fort Nelson. Accommodations are plentiful, gas is cheaper and the scenery's more dramatic. Even the flies are more laid-back. But it's also a little predictable, like that developed cottage road. It makes our detour feel worthwhile.

Pack your bags

WHERE TO STAY

Harbour House B & B: 1 Lakeshore Dr., Hay River, NWT; 867-874-2233. Starts at around $85 for a double room in summer.

Checkpoint Motel: Fort Simpson, NWT; 867-695-2953. Starts at around $100 for a double in summer.

MORE INFORMATION

Alberta Tourism: travelalberta.com.

NWT Tourism: http://www.explorenwt.com.

Hay River: http://www.assembly.gov.nt.ca/VisitorInfoNWTMapandHistory/HayRiver.html.

Yellowknife: http://www.yellowknife.ca.

Alaska Highway: http://www.bellsalaska.com/alaska_highway.html.

READING

The Milepost 2005 57th Edition, is the bible of north-country travel; The Alaska Highway, by Ron Dalby (Folcrum); World Famous Alaska Highway: A Guide to the Alcan & Other Wilderness Roads of the North, by Tricia Brown (Graphic Arts Center Publishing).

T-Minus One Week

T-Minus One Week

In one week I will be leaving the tropical south (Canada's banana belt) Niagara-on-the-Lake headed out on a one week Odyssey across this great land we call Canada. At the urging of Audrey Epp and in the footsteps of Ryan Androsoff I have started this blog. Having not much experience at his I will have to learn along the way. 

For those of you who haven's heard, I am moving to the Northwest Territories, Yellowknfe to be precise to take a job with the City as a lifeguard and water safety instructor, and before you start laughing, it is at an indoor pool.  In the past few weeks I have given up my responsibilities with the different board's I am on (Fort George, Willowbank, NDFFA) and have wrapped up my jobs with the Niagara Parks Commission, Great Wolf Lodge and Niagara Classic Cars. With one week to go, I still have some planning, packing, cleaning and tying up of loose ends.  

Thank you for supporting this move I am making. I am thankful especially to the Queenston Volunteer Firefighters' who without my knowledge or permission took my car while I was in Montreal last week and put snow tires on it. I am going to miss Spike's cooking on Monday nights and especially our Friday routine with the usual suspects. My last night in town is going to be at the Niagara District Firefighters' Association Christmas dinner in Willoughby and it is going to be a lot of fun.  

I am going to head to the CAA today to get some maps and associated resources and will also pick up some travel insurance for my excursion through the States. I haven't quite decided on my route because as it is winter here in most of Canada I will decide along the way. My main choices are going to be where to cross back into Canada (Manitoba or Sask.) do I travel north from Regina to Saskatoon and on to Edmonton or do I head west to Calgary and then up to Edmonton. I figure that it is at least twenty hours from Edmonton to Yellowknife! And yes there is a road that goes up there however there might be a problem when I get to the Mackenzie River in Fort Providence but they tell me that what they do is put an excavator on the front of the ferry and get you across until the ice bridge is in. If any of you have suggestions on routes that you have taken or know of, I would be happy to hear them.

I hope you enjoy reading this Blog and I will make my best attempts at updating it as I go along heading into the darkness that is North of 60. Please keep in touch as always, my e-mail is going to stay the same: crispinb@hotmail.com 

A little bit more about how the name of this blog was created. Those of you who are from Niagara-on-the-Lake should catch on right away. I wanted to bridge the gap between the north and south and so I blended the two with the name Nwt-O-T-L. 

Here are some of the links mentioned in my blog:

www.geocities.com/n_d_f_f_a

www.willowbank.ca

www.friendsoffortgeorge.ca

www.niagaraparks.com

www.greatwolflodge.com

www.niagaraclassiccars.com