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ENTERPRISE - In 1954, Karl Mueller arrived in Canada with a suitcase full of clothes and $10 in his pocket. In the 54 years since, Mueller has spent most of his life in Canada's North.

"If you want to work, the opportunity is here," said the Enterprise businessman.

Karl Mueller, who immigrated to Canada in the 1950s, has lived in Enterprise for 38 years. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Aside from the opportunity, Mueller said he was attracted to the peacefulness of the North and the many interesting and nice people he meets here.

Mueller, 79, was born and raised in Vienna, Austria.

He was a child for most of the Second World War when Austria was occupied by Germany.

Near the end of the war, he started working in a machine shop.

"I worked when I was 14," he recalled.

After the war, he continued to work as a machinist, even though things were tough in Austria and there was a shortage of work, he said. "It was not too good, but everyone survived."

When he was 25, Mueller decided to leave for Canada.

"Canada advertised for qualified tradespeople," he recalled.

It was not difficult to leave Austria for a new country, he said. "At the age of 25, you are prepared for adventure."

Mueller said he left for Canada even though he didn't know anything about the country. "Not a damn thing."

He travelled by rail to Rotterdam and sailed across the Atlantic for seven days, and was seasick the whole time.

"I was sick as soon as the boat got in the English Channel," he said with a laugh.

He had been advised by a Canadian official in Austria that he should travel to Hamilton or Toronto to seek work as a machinist.

Taking a train from Halifax to Toronto, it was only then that he realized the size of Canada.

Mueller, who spoke enough English to get by, got a job gardening and landscaping.

"That was my first job in Canada," he said.

After four weeks in Toronto, he heard someone talking of a mine in Yukon and was attracted by the thought of working in North. So, he went to work at a mine near Mayo Landing, Yukon.

Mueller has basically been in the North ever since, aside from periods working in Alberta.

After two years at the mine, he worked for six months as a mechanic on a Distant Early Warning site in Cambridge Bay.

In 1957, he worked in a moving camp building a road from the South to Fort Providence. That was the first time he was in the Enterprise area. Afterwards he moved to Fort Smith to help build a sawmill and then opened a garage, which he operated until leaving the community in 1970.

That was when he moved to Enterprise and has been there ever since. In his new community, he opened Karl Mueller Construction Ltd., which was involved in work such as road construction and sewer line installation in a number of NWT communities.

"It was good for the business because it was centrally located transportation-wise," he said of Enterprise.

These days, Mueller describes himself as being half retired, mainly because of health problems over the past two years.

However, he still wants to work, because he would be bored if he didn't, he said. "To be honest, I would not know what to do with all that time."

In Enterprise, Mueller has also become involved in municipal politics over the last decade and is often a vocal critic of community affairs.

"If there was anything wrong, I spoke up," he said. "I did not shut up."

Currently, he is a member of the hamlet council, along with his partner, Ann Leskiw.

Mueller said he wants to ensure community affairs are conducted in a proper manner, and has no intention of staying quiet.