Yellowknife (Sep 10/04) - There may be a chill in the air to turn Yellowknifers off ice cream treats, but it can be a year-round love affair of flavour-licking goodness.

Reddi Mart on Old Airport Road is one of the few places to get both hard and soft ice cream in Yellowknife. Located across from McDonald's, the store offers 16 hard ice cream flavours and 14 soft-serve ice cream types.

Mark Macusi, 16, has been scooping out ice cream for Yellowknifers for the past three months. He said that the servers there try their best to create the perfect ice cream cone.

The most popular flavours are cotton candy and bubble gum, which are kids' favourites. For soft serve, chocolate is the most ordered.

"Butterscotch ice cream is my favourite," Macusi said.

The store goes through approximately three to five buckets of the different flavours of hard ice cream in a week.

Part of this could be because there are usually three to four scoops per cone and the servers like to put a little extra ice cream on top.

While people have their favourite flavour and type of ice cream, there are some treats that are rarely ordered.

Turtles is the least-liked type of hard ice cream flavour, Macusi said.

"Other people just want other kinds, other than Turtles."

The classic ice cream parlour treats such as the sundae and banana split aren't very popular, either, Macusi said.

For cones, the most popular are anything with a point, not the round ones.

While Yellowknifer was there, a strawberry sundae, strawberry milkshake, a few hard and soft ice cream cones were asked for.

Macusi said his favourite ice cream creation to make is the flurry, because it's pretty easy to do. Oreo is the crowd favourite for the flurry.

Macusi said ice cream is good for you, because it tastes so good.

Reddi Mart does have competition from its McDonald's neighbour, from Northern Lights Frozen Delights at Panda II Mall, and at the downtown Reddi Mart; but the Old Airport Road Reddi Mart servers can rest easy. Northern Lights is going to be closed on the weekends for the winter, and the other stores only have soft serve.