SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Eight women have spent seven weeks competing in the Golden Girls Queen Pageant to raise the most money for their chosen charity, in order to be crowned Yk 75's Homecoming Queen.

However, at the Midnight Sun Dinner and Dance coronation on Saturday, everyone was a winner - literally.

Despite weeks of hard work and competition the pageant organizers could not distinguish a clear winner, and to the delight of the approximately 800 people attending the evening, everyone got a crown.

It was a night of gems - from the diamonds each Golden Girl received, to the eight crowns, and to the contestants themselves: Ruth Spence, Ethel Wilson, Jan Stirling, Jean Piro, Barb Bromley, Carolyn England, Precy Rivera, and Esther Braden.

For their efforts, the queens received a crown, gift packs, gift certificates, free flights and six months of flower arrangements, among other things.

The Midnight Sun Dinner and Dance at the Multiplex was a chance for the queens to reflect and revel in their hard work, having brought in more than $53,000 from ticket sales - 50 per cent of which will go to their charities.

The queens endured gruelling schedules, attending function after function, while trying to sell tickets at the same time - which was the easy part.

"You walk downtown and people ask you for tickets, they were really easy to sell," said Ruth Spence, whose charity was the YWCA Yellowknife.

Spence, who first came to Yellowknife with her husband in 1964, was the first executive director of the YWCA Yellowknife, and has been involved in numerous other community initiatives. She said Yellowknife is place full of people willing to lend a hand.

"We started with nothing. All those women (the Golden Girls) up there started something. The thing about Yellowknife is, if you get an idea you can always get people who will help you. Yellowknife is a fabulous place," she said.

Precy Rivera, whose charity was the Philippine Cultural Association, and who moved to Yellowknife in 1987, agreed that selling the tickets was the easiest part.

"It was hard work, but most of the Filipinos bought tickets because they wanted to help me win."

Yellowknife's unique community spirit was the topic of the night, with Jan Stirling - whose charity was the Canadian National Institute for the blind - summing up the feelings of the night.

"There are so many things to get involved in, in the North, it's been really lovely. And I'm glad everyone got to be a queen," she said.

The Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, Tony Whitford, presented each of the queens with a diamond on behalf of his office, and a kiss on behalf of himself.

"That's what I love about the job," he said afterwards.

However, Whitford's comment about the combined number of years the queens had resided in Yellowknife - some 700 years - was met with the same stoicism that allowed these women to build Yellowknife from the ground up.