Yellowknife (Mar 15/00) - Buffalo Airways and the City of Yellowknife were the big winners among those applying for Business Development Fund money last year.

The Government of the Northwest Territories recently released a list of those receiving contributions from the fund, which is administered by the Northwest Territories Business Credit Corporation.

Buffalo Airways got a $250,000 loan to purchase aviation tools and equipment required for an aviation engineers school it planned to start.

The City of Yellowknife got a total of $232,585, $200,000 for economic development and the rest for a forum on secondary diamond industry.

As long as a full accounting -- including receipts -- is given for each project, money from the fund does not have to be repaid.

In the 1998-99 fiscal year, a total of $9.4 million in contributions was approved.

The fund is designed to stimulate business development in the North.

Other six-figure recipients included:

- $100,000 for a company in Deline constructing a new hotel there

- A total of $127,000 for the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce for the organization of a Baffin Fisheries Council, business promotion, the Nunavut mining symposium and the creation of a business and government directory

- $110,000 to the Community Gardening Society of Inuvik for converting the Grollier Hall Arena into a community greenhouse

- $141,000 for the Dogrib Rae Band for promotion of community-driven initiatives and to renovate a motel