Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 08/01) - Last week's late-season snowfall didn't white-out Yellowknife gardeners' enthusiasm.

"The good thing about the weather is you can do things like this," said Yellowknife Garden Centre's Jerry Vandenbilche as he filled plastic garden pots with a soft mixture of soil.

Usually the garden centre opens for its annual bedding plants sales business around the May long weekend.

Last year, co-owners Vandenbilche and Rob Lindskog opened on May 18 and it snowed after the plants came in.

This year, they have more than late spring cold weather and snowfall to contend with. The garden centre's flowers are trucked up to Yellowknife from Blackfalds, Alta.

But the Mackenzie River ferry isn't running yet and the ice bridge is off limits. In the past, the life-line to the South has been out for about three weeks.

But this year's weather could delay the crossing until later. The latest the Mackenzie River ferry has ever taken its first annual spring trip was May 31 in 1962.

So the partners will mix soil, organize for the Yellowknife trade fair and tend to the 300 lilies that are basking in the sun in front of a warm window.

Last weekend they potted little Saskatoon trees. They were trucked into Yellowknife before the crossing went out.

"Hopefully it will get warmer and we can do some maintenance around here. It seems like we never have enough time to get everything done," said Lindskog.

In the meantime gardeners wait.

The store was open for business on the weekend.

"People are coming in buying seeds and bulbs. Some people come in just to feel some spring," said Lindskog.

Last week's blast of cold weather was part of a pattern in place over all of Western Canada.

"Basically, a ridge of high pressure that usually is farther east this time of year is well west of where it normally is," said Serge Besner, a forecaster with Environment Canada's Arctic Weather Centre in Edmonton. "That's allowing cold air to sink south from the Arctic and setting up a storm track farther west than normal."

Colder-than-normal temperatures will prevail for much of May, said Besner.

"We're only open seven weeks. We'll try to stay open 'til July 8," said Vandenbilche.

The Yellowknife Garden Centre will have a booth at the Yellowknife spring trade show. "People come and ask questions. They are eager to get ready ... and gardeners like to tell stories."

- with files from John Barker