Yellowknife (Oct 06/06) - Last week, a few people helped to keep a Yellowknife tradition alive and well.

For the second year in a row, International Music Day was held in and around the Yellowknife Glass Recyclers co-op, featuring jams, food and an instrument repair and exchange.

Things were just getting started Sunday afternoon, but the smell of stew was already spreading through the cozy studio in Old Town, where co-op member Gisele Forget was meeting people at the door.

"We've already moved more people through than all day last year," she said.

Already, local musician Patrick Duxbury had donated a series of woodwind instruments and a clarinet to the cause, and was running through "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with Edward Coad, 11.

"I had a whole bunch of extra instruments," he said. "I decided to get rid of some of these things."

Once a sizable event in Yellowknife, the day has been scaled down due to a lack of funding from Canadian Heritage, who started the initiative in 1975. For the last two years, it has been held at the co-op.

"We adopted it," Forget said simply.

Yellowknife Glass Recyclers founder Matthew Grogono has been organizing International Music Day in Yellowknife since 1999.

"(The year) 2000 was the 25th anniversary," he said. "Then it all started drying up."

However, with things picking up, he said he had booked the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre for the event in 2007.

"This is a dress rehearsal for 2007," he said.

Plans were in place to let the day bleed over into night, with a jam around the campfire in the backyard. By early afternoon, jam regulars Jesse James, Mel Sabourin and Wade Carpenter were already in attendance.

Meanwhile, Grogono mused on the reason he has tried to keep things going for the last seven years.

"Music is a universally-accepted way of communicating that brings out the best in people," Grogono said.

"The more people who pick up instruments, then more positive energy is out there."