SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Former MLA, cabinet minister, bar owner and "Bay boy" Gordon Wray died in his Yellowknife home on Wednesday at the age of 57, from what is believed to have been a heart attack.

Gordon Wray: After leaving politics, he spent time on various boards, including chair of the environmental review panel that looked at the Ekati diamond mine. -

"I think everyone's in shock right now," said Wray's eldest son, Scott. "It's so sudden.

"We've been getting phone calls from basically around the world," said Scott, adding his father kept many friends he made 30 and 40 years ago.

Wray's Northern adventure began in Scotland in 1970, when he saw a newspaper ad that would change his life.

"My dad didn't know what to do," said Scott Wray. "He didn't know if he wanted to go to university or come to the colonies." The ad sought young men looking for adventure in the Arctic.

Wray had an interview with the Hudson's Bay Company, was chosen for one of 13 positions from some 2,500 applicants, and was bound for Canada a few weeks later.

Wray, along with four other "Bay boys" including former legislative assembly clerk David Hamilton, took a train across Canada on his way to his posting. He stepped off a DC-3 plane into blowing snow in Rankin Inlet and asked himself what the hell he'd gotten into. Any apprehensions he may have felt that day must have vanished because he spent the rest of his life in the North, eventually moving into politics. He represented the Kivalliq region as a Northwest Territories MLA and in cabinet from 1983 to 1991.

In Baker Lake, Wray met Rita, whom he married in 1971 and they would have five children: Cheryl, Scott, Fiona, Kirsty and Stuart.

Wray's work as a cabinet minister required him to travel frequently, so the family moved from Baker Lake to settle permanently in Yellowknife in 1986.

"He just made himself a life," said friend of more than 25 years, David McPherson.

"Gordon knew how things worked. He could see how issues related in the big picture and he was a very, very smart man. He knew more about how things worked up here politically than anyone I know."

Lois Little remembers Wray's astonishment when nine territorial government workers who gave political development workshops were fired in 1976 for "teaching people things that they shouldn't know."

Little said the government of the time thought hamlets should stick with "collecting honey bags and picking up dog poop."Wray, a community settlement officer, was one of the group's strongest supporters.

"I don't think he ever forgot those early days of wanting to ensure that people had the power to make their own decisions on their lives," she said.

After leaving politics, Wray spent time on various boards, including chair of the environmental review panel that looked at the Ekati diamond mine.

"He did an excellent excellent job and it set the standard for the mines that followed," said McPherson, adding that without Wray, the mining industry in the North Slave could have experienced similar delays as Mackenzie Valley Pipeline process.

Wray was chair of the NWT Water Board for more than a decade.

Scott Wray said his father liked a good laugh and was an extensive traveller.

Once, on a ministerial trip to the communist Soviet Union in 1986, Gordon and Rita were assigned two KGB agents.

"One night apparently one of the KGB agents went drinking with them," said Scott.

The next morning the agent was gone.

"He wasn't supposed to be getting close or fraternizing with them," said Scott.

Wray also started the Black Knight Pub with Bogus Zdyb in 1997. Sitting in a now-defunct pub one night, a frustrated Zdyb turned to Wray and said "if we want bad service, we should just build our own damn bar."

As they discussed it further, a man standing behind them piped up, telling them he had a building for sale.

Wray and Zdyb visited the building that Saturday and decided to go for it.

"That was the kind of attitude Gordon had," said Zdyb. "He was very adventurous in that regard."

Zdyb said the pub will hold a wake for Wray, but details had not been confirmed at press time.

Wray had recently returned from Scotland, where he spent nine months looking after his parents' estates after his father died. The family had been planning to return to Scotland in a few months to spread Gordon's father's ashes.

His ashes will now be spread with his father's.