Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 23/00) - Yellowknife's oldest school building will receive a special place of honour in the annals of the city's early history.

Yellowknife Education District No. 1 will be commemorating the 5 X 5 meter log cabin originally used by well-known and loved educator, the late Mildred Hall, who opened its doors for the first time in 1939 near Pilot's Lane in Old Town.

The building was moved to a site near the Abe Miller Centre in 1989. It was moved next to the Yk No. 1 district office on Franklin Avenue last June.

The original structure was built by Ray G. "Red" McPhie and "Sleepy Jim" McDonald in 1936 or 1937 and served as a bunkhouse for the first couple of years before being converted into a school.

Its tenure as an educational facility, however, was short-lived. After only a year, a new school was built on School Draw, and the original single-room school was moved nearby to serve as the laundry.

According to Dr. Judith Knapp, superintendent of Yk District No.1, the board office will be commemorating the 60th anniversary of the school and Yellowknife's first public school district in a variety of ways when the building is officially re-opened to the public in September.

"There will be a time capsule," Knapp said. "We're hoping the board of trustees will include something as well as from all the schools."

"It's known that it really was the beginning of all our district, so all the kids and people in the district are going to participate. We're hoping the time capsule will be opened in another 60 years."

Museum possible

Yk District No. 1 are also hoping to convert the building into a sort of museum, complete with photos from its earliest days with Mildred Hall and wooden school desks to give it back its one-school room look.

Besides being used as a museum, Yk District No. 1 plans to have the some classes from Mildred Hall school taught in the original log building to give kids a taste of what school was like in the city's early days.

"Teachers in the future can actually go in and teach a little class or lesson in the log school as part of their social studies lessons," Knapp said. "So, we'll have use for that as well as a place for tourists to stop and look at."

The district has come a long way since Mildred Hall first opened the old school to a class of 32 students in 1939. Today, there a approximately 2,300 students attending classes in the eight Yellowknife public schools.

So what could be in store for the next 60 years?

Knapp said she expects Yk No.1 to undergo enormous changes in the not too distant future.

"We'll probably be using technology even more as a day-to-day tool in all classrooms," Knapp said.

"I think teachers' roles will probably change. They'll become far more the facilitators and knowledge brokers," she said.

"I also see that teachers will be the people that carry forward the moral standards of the time.

"Who knows, maybe school will be year-round."