Daris McCann
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 23/00) - Was there a gold rush in Yellowknife in the early thirties?

Yes. Prospectors were lured to Yellowknife Bay to stake claims in the hopes of a bonanza. In the Klondike, fortune seekers had only to pan for surface gold. Some, after suffering terrible hardships, were lucky enough to find gold but in Yellowknife the nature of the hard rock find required development.

Always a paper-pushing town, the "Rush" in Yellowknife was largely the press coverage of a small group of prospectors, promoters and mining experts (some fake and some genuine).

Yellowknife, for all its Northern frontier mystique, needed big money from the Bay Street board rooms to develop. It took money to transport freight, engineers, labourers and equipment across a thousand miles of wilderness and it took money to sink shafts and house these workers. Yellowknife was a little fleck on a monstrous, huge Barrenland where men and women came and settled and most of them, except for the first few years, came for wages. Good wages. This lifestyle has continued since the biggest consortium of all -- government -- moved in.

Yellowknife may be famous "outside" because living in a frontier, its people are perceived to be adventuresome and carefree, but those who make Yellowknife their home should also have pride in other pioneering characteristics - resourcefulness, ingenuity and hard work.

The story of School District #1, from its first meeting in 1939 to the completion of J.H. Sissons elementary school in 1976, is a story about Yellowknifers. The Yellowknife population may have always been transitory but there have been many people willing to put immense time and effort into community work.

No liquor, no water, no school

The year 1939 was one that figured dramatically around the world with the advent of the Seconde World War. The settlement of Yellowknife had three pressing problems.

The people had no legal access to liquor, no clean water, and no school. Jock McMeekan, editor of the Yellowknife Blade, waxed eloquently on all three subjects. By the spring of 1939, the Territorial Council had licensed a liquor store.

Its location had been based on the fact that a Mr. Jones had a dry basement for the storage of beer.

This was an immense improvement over the previous methods of procuring liquor. Bootlegging, often by the local prostitutes, was very expensive to the consumer.

A person could also sign a declaration to the RCMP that the liquor was required for medicinal purposes but the RCMP did not have enough room to hold all the medicines ordered!

How ironic that Yellowknife, situated on one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, would have a problem with contaminated water. This strange tale of the sub arctic was threatening the health of the whole community. Situated on "the rock", when spring thaw finally came, sewage literally slid down the hill. You could drill for gold in those rocks but permafrost did not allow drilling for water. Fresh water was obtained from the lake, at the base of the hill. This problem was alleviated by August 1939 when a water system went into place.

Children had come to Yellowknife as early as 1937. There were also children at both Consolidated and Negus mines and because their parents did not want them walking long distances to school, originally the intention was to build two schools.

At that time there was no satellite communication or daily jet service -- the NWT was governed from far off Ottawa by an appointed, Ottawa-based council.

NWT residents didn't even have representation in the House of Commons, nor did they have any community council. Education for the settlement of Yellowknife was first discussed by the NWT Council on Sept. 20, 1938, when Mr. Giegerick, Superintendent of Consolidated Mines, and Vic Ingraham requested financial assistance for a school. These men were subsequently asked to canvas residents for contributions. The Council agreed to give a grant of $500 to both Consolidated Mines and Yellowknife, provided each erected a building, hired a qualified teacher, and followed either Alberta or Saskatchewan curriculum.

Grand sweepstake

In November, Yellowknife residents elected a provisional school board. One of the first projects of the Provisional Board was a sweepstake in the Yellowknife Prospector. A total of 392 tickets were made up selling for $1 each. Contestants were to guess the arrival of the first commercial plane from Edmonton or Peace River after breakup. The lucky winner got $100 with the remainder of the money raised going to the Yellowknife Provisional School Board.

It was decided to build only one school at Yellowknife and so the board requested $1,000 from the NWT Council but this was refused. By this time the board had raised $800 on its own, a goodly part of this being a contribution from a newly organized group "The Daughters of the Midnight Sun."

According to a report from Ottawa: "On Dec 1, 1938, the provisional Yellowknife school board asked that the grant to be paid for the operation of a school during the period from January to June without the formation of a school district, and this the Administration agreed to do. The first schooling was made available under the direction of Mrs. Vera Lane, who made part of her home available as a classroom. The first teacher was Mr. D.A. Davies. At the end of January the Services of Mr. Davies were dispensed with because he could not teach the Alberta school curriculum, and Miss Mildred Hall was engaged as teacher." "On June 16, 1939, three resident property owners at Yellowknife submitted to the Administration a petition for the formation of a school district. At the same time they requested that a loan of $3,500 be granted to assist with the erection of a school building. There was some talk of having the duties of the school board performed by the members of the trustee board of the proposed local administrative district, but this was not done.

The Yellowknife local Administrative District Ordinance was assented to on July 3, 1939, and brought into effect on Sept. 1. On Aug. 5 the Commissioner approved the establishment of a public school district, the boundaries of same to coincide with the local administrative district. Yellowknife School District No. 1 was formally established on Oct. 1, 1939 under Section 33 of the School Ordinance.

Meanwhile, a poll of the Yellowknife residents concerning the establishment of the new school district was held on Aug. 24 at which time the vote was 20 to one in favour. On the same date three trustees for Yellowknife School District were elected.

Mildred Hall's official opening

In September Mildred Hall opened the doors of the first Yellowknife Public School to 32 eager children. Thus by the fall, Jock McMeekan could legally drink whisky with clean water, and as fate would have it, his future bride (Miss Hall) had come to Yellowknife. Thus Yellowknife became the only community in the Northwest Territories or the Yukon to have a local school board, a distinction it still holds.

Before school started Miss Hall was requested at a board meeting to "make a survey and ascertain the number of children that will be attending school in order that a suitable building be obtained."

The "suitable" building was a rented log cabin 16 feet by 16 feet. Previously it had served as a bunk house and kitchen for a mining company. Mildred Hall lived in the smaller of two parts. The building was inadequate for the needs of the district, learning materials were next to non-existent and because of the location of the cabin, school was constantly being distracted by drunks on their way to "Glamour Alley."

(Doris McCann works with the Yk Education District No. 1.)