Originally published March 13, 2015: Hanging on Muriel Betsina’s wall, on the left side as you enter the kitchen, is a large black and white photo. At the picture’s centre, an 18-year-old Muriel rests her forearms on a rocky ledge while the rest of her body disappears off a cliff. Her hair is wild and her smile is toothy and
What’s the best way for governments engage their citizens? How can they communicate important information, invite feedback on policy proposals, work collaboratively with the people they’re supposed to represent? It’s a key political question. And the City of Yellowknife may have just stumbled onto the solution: Put a dog on it. Seriously. Yellowknifers adore their
Across the country, Indigenous governments are all calling for the same thing, says Valerie Courtois: the capacity to manage their own traditional territories using their own laws and values. While many First Nations have land claims, self-government agreements and land-use plans, along with other management tools under their belts, they are often still unable put
It’s the middle of the night, and I am sleeping on the tiny loveseat in the living room with my arm stretched across the fluffy back of my best friend beside me. Her name is Willow, and she’s a tri-pawed husky mutt from Fort Chipewyan. She is also mysteriously ill, and I am trying not
After over a decade, sled dog racing has returned to the community of Fort Smith on the heels of an unexpected champion: 72-year-old elder David Poitras. A former addictions counsellor and chief of the Salt River First Nation, Poitras jumped back into competitive mushing three years ago after finding himself with some extra time in
Downtown Yellowknife got just a little bit more generic last week, when the Yellowknife Inn rebranded itself as Quality Inn & Suites, quietly switching its signage over the course of Thursday. You could argue that this is just cosmetics, and that the real Yellowknife Inn, the one with deep roots in the city’s history and
Several weeks before the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, BBC Sport released the opening credits to their upcoming Games coverage. Across a bleak northern landscape skied an Inuit man followed by a pack of salivating wolves. A few slick snowboard tricks and a luge run later, and he’d defeated a wicked ice spirit with a well-placed curling
As the XXI Snowking Festival kicks into full gear this week, take a look back at this history of the event, first published a year ago: It all starts in the Woodyard, that picaresque, old-by-Yellowknife-standards neighbourhood on the shores of Yellowknife Bay. Its buildings are examples of a genre you could call survival architecture: cozy, pie-eyed shacks
Stephen Woolf is packing up and leaving town in a few months, but before he goes, there are a few loose ends to tie off. One of them: finding a fitting home for a piece of Yellowknife history – albeit recent history. Crowning a shed filled with power tools and stacks of core boxes –
Yellowknife photographer Kirsten Murphy was going through a personal rough patch when she got the inspiration to take pictures of people’s scars. “I wasn’t feeling particularly good about myself and I turned that into work by looking at people who’ve been through real physical pain,” says Murphy, who is presenting Scars, a solo exhibition March
In 1965, Everett George Klippert, a 39-year-old mechanic’s helper, was charged with four counts of gross indecency in the now-abandoned town of Pine Point, NWT. Deemed “incurably homosexual” and detained indefinitely as a dangerous sexual offender, he was the last person to be imprisoned for homosexuality in Canada, and his case, which went all the
After years of “couch-surfing” their art gallery around town, YK ARCC finally has some new digs in Old Town — at least for now. The city’s artist-run centre has struggled to put down roots since its inception and has been largely homeless since last summer, until its recent move into the old theatre between the
I don’t think the French like our film Conibear. No one has come out and said so yet, but that’s the message I’m getting. You know, the type of message you got from your mom when she saw your first tattoo… a forced half-smile with a severe look that says she is utterly disappointed, and
I had been in Fort Smith for about two months when the questions started. I’d be out interviewing someone for work and suddenly it would be my turn to answer: “So are you going to join hockey?” Women’s hockey. I recall it being a thing for the most hardcore of players, the university athletes, the
Mike Mitchell has a bit of swagger in his step today, having successfully raised $6,000 in less than two days for the 2nd annual Snowking International Snow Carving Competition. As principal organizer of the event, Mitchell had a dilemma. Teams from Alaska, Argentina, USA/Mexico and Canada were lined up to carve at the castle Feb.