Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 20/99) - The Christmas season is so busy for Santa, he needs helpers. When the jolly old elf needs help, he often looks to Fort Smith, where some of the North's best Santas have come from.

Perhaps it's something in the water, but we've had the pleasure of years of Christmas spirit from Tony Whitford, Duncan MacPherson and the one the kids call "the real Santa," Glen Gotd.

Gotd has been helping Santa since 1983 in Fort Smith and often south of 60 too, in the big malls in Calgary. Part of his success in the role are his physical characteristics.

"My hair went white during the Second World War," Godt laughed. "So that really helped out."

Part of his job with Santa has been maintaining and recruiting for Santa's herd.

"Rudolph's 68 now, so he just rides in the sleigh and works good as a tail light," he said.

Recruiting for the herd hasn't been easy, Godt admits, but he says he found a suitable replacement for the lead.

"A few years back, I heard Frank Laviolette found some Woodland Caribou with blue ears," Godt recalled. "So, I went over to see them and it wasn't their ears so much as their eyes glowing blue."

"Their eyes shone blue so he could feed in the dark," he said. "The glow from their eyes made their ears look blue."

"I also hear tell that there are some green-tailed caribou up near Yellowknife, so I'm going to try and round some of those up," Godt added.

Godt said his family wasn't rich when he grew up, so he takes great joy in making Christmas special for children.

"My folks were quite poor when I grew up and we had a fold-out paper Christmas tree," he recalled. "Like those paper bells you see ... it was about eight inches high."

The gifts the kids received were not so much extravagant as practical, he remembered.

"We used to get underwear every year," he chuckled.

His resemblance to St. Nick makes going out tough this time of year, he said.

"I can't go out in public around Christmas without people approaching me, asking for autographs and such," he said. "Now I know what it's like to be Elvis Presley."

A big part of Christmas in Fort Smith is the work Duncan MacPherson does for most of the month of December.

MacPherson travels around Smith every other night in what he calls 'his sleigh' -- more of a parade float, decked out in the finest festive fashion. He's made it a Smith tradition, doing this for over ten years now.

"It started around '87, I think, when I dragged a tree around behind my car," MacPherson laughed. "I had it on a piece of plywood with a little generator and lights around my station wagon."

The spirit grew in MacPherson and the town, and, consequently, so did his display.

"It just sort of snowballed from there on," he said. "Now we have the tree and the fireplace with smoke coming from the chimney, the family of Muffalooses, and on the truck we have, 'Ho, ho ho and Mahsi Cho.'"

"This year, I've had to add another generator," he added. "I've got 300 Christmas lightbulbs on it and 19 spot lights on it."

MacPherson said the community has really spurred the whole event on with their support and great Christmas spirit.

"It's caught the imagination of the community," he said. "We're like a family here, we fight between each other now and then, but at Christmas, we can put our differences aside for a month."

Since the start of December, MacPherson has been touring the town every other night, in all kinds of weather. The people on the streets and looking out their windows keep him going night after night.

"The other night it was 23 below and it was cold, and the only way I could keep warm was through the enthusiasm from the kids and the parents," he said. "If you're driving along, and there's nobody on the street or nobody looking out their doors and windows, well, we might as well pack it in and go home."

Giving a gift of hope is something that gives this Santa his real spirit.

"In all communities there's a certain amount of poverty, and driving around on the sleigh can spark a hope in some of these children who might otherwise have nothing to look forward to," he said. "That just puts a lump in my throat, that I can put a spark of hope in them just for one night."

Sharing and reliving Christmases past with local elders is also what keeps MacPherson wearing the red suit.

"Seniors, maybe living alone, will come to the door and look out, it sparks something that maybe happened 40 or 50 years ago in their lives and it brings them back and it causes them to smile a little," he said. "Those are the real touching moments. You can bring an extra little bit of happiness into people's lives and I think we all need that now and again."

The tradition has become a big part of Christmas for Fort Smith's Santa and his Mrs. too.

"It's very important to me," he said. "We don't just do it for the community -- we do it for ourselves," he said.

One of the North's favourite Santas, Tony Whitford, now lives in Yellowknife, but Whitford was also born and raised in Fort Smith.

Smith was also the first place Whitford donned the red suit and beard.

"The first time was in 1964," Whitford recalled. "Pacific Western needed somebody who could do that and I've been doing it every year since then."

He became fond of the ritual and, because of popular demand, made an investment in the Christmas spirit.

"I ended up buying a suit, because every year, somewhere or other, I'll be asked to play Santa," he added.

"I used to go visit homes on Christmas Eve and I had a little strategy worked up, where I'd learn a little something about the children that only Santa would know," he recalled.

"I sometimes go to visit the seniors too, and sometimes you can't fool those seniors. One will always say, 'I recognize that voice,'" he laughed.

Whitford has taken his Santa show on the road as well through the years, travelling around the territories, bringing smiles to faces all over the North.

"I've flown from here to Fort Smith for special occasions at the school," he remembered. "Somebody had won something and Santa Claus had to deliver it, so the whole school would meet in the gym and I'd come in and do my thing and then leave as quickly as I came."

"I used to help the Lions at some of the schools across the lake (Great Slave Lake)," he said. "We'd fly over on a helicopter and tell the kids Santa was giving the reindeer a rest."

He says the children bring him the most joy in his work with helping Santa.

"The little ones are just so cute," he smiled. "I've seen these little ones grow up over the years and Santa has really grown up with a lot of these families."

Whitford even takes the time to play elf in his own workshop, building wooden toys to pass around to make sure nobody gets missed.

"When I get time, I have these little patterns for rattles for babies, with a little bell inside of a cage and I also make little cars and trucks," he said. "I keep them very simple and I put those in a bag so no one is deprived. Very simple toys that I make out of wood that I've salvaged."

"Something that a kid can see and say, 'Yeah, Santa Claus made that or elves made that.'"

The job is not all smiles and presents though, Whitford said. Lifting children up and down for hours on end can put a strain on the jolly old elf.

"Sometimes you're picking the kids up to put them on your knee and your picking up 20 or 30, so over a weekend that's a lot of poundage," he laughed. "No wonder my shoulders get sore."

As well, playing Santa sometimes calls for special laundry requirements, Whitford hinted.

"Satin or velvet gets really black when it's wet, but that's only happened three times and that's over 30 years," he said.

As with MacPherson, the gift of children's laughter and enthusiasm keeps Whitford in red year after year.

"I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from it," he said through a wide smile. "The children are always so excited and they can't stop laughing or jumping ... I do quite enjoy that."

His favourite memories of Christmas are relived each time he puts on the suit, Whitford said.

"Just to see our own kids when they were little ... they couldn't hardly wait, so we'd let them open one present before they went to bed," he recalled. "The next morning they'd always run in and wake us up ... we sort of miss that, so these other children sort of fill the bill."