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HAY RIVER - A Hay River woman is turning her passion for chocolate into a new business.

Deb Stanley started taking orders this month for Inukshuk Chocolates, her new business selling the specially-made treats.

A chocolate inukshuk is just one of the creations of Deb Stanley, who has recently opened a new business to make specialty chocolate in Hay River. - photo courtesy of Deb Stanley

Stanley, who describes herself as a chocolate artisan, loves making chocolate.

"It's the smell, flavour and texture," she said. "It's a happy job."

In fact, Stanley has been making chocolate since she was a child growing up in Hay River.

"I do recall trying to make chocolate when I was four years old," she said with a laugh, adding all she really did back then was make a mess and get into trouble.

She also recalled that, when she was young, she would eat a chocolate bar every day.

However, she had never planned to go into the chocolate business, she said. "It was totally by accident."

In 2006, she was searching the Internet for a recipe for Kentucky Bourbon Balls, a type of truffle.

"I couldn't find the recipe I wanted," she said, although the said she saw a website for an online school, Ecole Chocolat in Vancouver.

"Everything I learned was by Internet," said Stanley, a 49-year-old mother of four grown children.

She completed her first three-month online course in 2006 to learn about different chocolates, various flavours and tempering.

"It all led up to coming up with your own recipes to make chocolates," she said.

Even though she made brownies, cakes and other things chocolate almost every day, Stanley said she still felt she needed to learn more.

"I didn't want to make yucky chocolate," she said.

Since then, she has sold her chocolates at several crafts fairs in Hay River.

In September 2006, Stanley and some other graduates of the course took a 10-day chocolate tour of Italy.

"It was all chocolate," she said, explaining the tour stopped at specialty shops and family manufacturing operations to see how the masters make chocolate.

Stanley said she is not sure where her new business initiative will take her.

"I'm hoping it works," she said.

She has obtained a business license and eventually hopes to set up her own kitchen.

Until that happens, she makes her chocolate creations in the evenings at the kitchen of the Northern Transportation Company Ltd.'s (NTCL) work camp in Hay River. That's because a person can't get a business license to make food at home.

Stanley works four or five evenings a week at the NTCL work camp.

She formerly worked for 18 years at the Post Office in Hay River before resigning in September to concentrate on her new endeavour.

"I needed a change," she said of her decision to leave the Post Office. "I was there for a long time."

While she has been dreaming of the new business and working on new recipes since 2006, she actually began creating the business when she left the Post Office.

Her new business will feature almost all her own recipes, including for truffles, solid chocolate and more.

"Right now, I'm doing special orders," she said.

The chocolates are also made in various designs, including as an inukshuk.

The new business's name – Inukshuk – comes from Stanley's Inuvialuit heritage on her mother's side.

Her chocolates will also be for sale at Emmanuel's Home and Gift store, and she hopes they will become available in other stores inside and outside Hay River.

People's reactions to her chocolates have been positive, she said. "They're all good reactions. I hope it stays that way."